Anatomy Of A Layout: November Kit

Hi everyone. Today, I have the reveal of the new kits at My Creative Scrapbook and a tutorial on how I used the kit to make a Fall layout. 

The kit featured the versatile Home + Made collection from Pebbles Inc. While the collection isn't specifically Autumn-themed, the colors and icons worked perfectly for my photo of the kids at our local pumpkin farm. 

I started the layout my piecing together the background on white cardstock, then I stitched the whole background onto a 12 x 12 sheet of kraft paper. 

The mask in the kit was perfect for creating a journaling spot. 

The kit included some cute script word stickers. I used the sticker that said "friends," inking it to make it pop against the background paper. 

I loved the sheet of Crate Memo paper in the kit and cut apart several elements from that sheet, including the arrows. It was perfect for adding little touches to complete the layout. 

I cut the phrase "Life Captured" from the Crate sheet as well. Here's another look at the completed layout.

Below is a photo of the November kit I used to make the layout. You can see more details of monthly kits at My Creative Scrapbook here.

Thanks so much for stopping by! 

The Cure for the Winter Blues

I love trend-watching at CHA, oohing and ahhhing over all the new releases, and waiting for a few of the products to show up on my doorstep.  There's nothing better at the end of the day than driving home to find happy mail on my front porch!

Cath Edvalson of Paper Crafts Magazine is always on top of the new trends and she loves the new color trend of navy.  I do too. It's the new black, I tell you. It goes with everything. 

Cath issued a challenge on the Moxie Fab World blog to make a project featuring navy and to link it back the blog.

I decided to play along and I used the new Genuine line from Authentique that was part of this month's kit at Birds of a Feather Kit Co. 

My friend made the terrific zipper flower and sent it to me in a swap. I got the better end of that deal!  I thought the flower worked perfectly here with the denim feel of this paper line.

I used Authentique's March sketch to guide my card design, flipping the sketch on its side (as shown below) and eliminating the banner. 

If you'd like to play along in the the Cure for the Winter Blues Challenge at Moxie Fab World, you can find the link here.   The deadline to enter is Sunday, March 11.  Click here to play along in the Authentique sketch challenge. That challenge ends April 4. 

Card Supplies:
CS: Bazzill Basics
PP: Authentique Genuine (Natural)
Stickers: Authentique Genuine (12x12 Details)
Punch: Martha Stewart
Gems: Close To My Heart
Thread: Coats & Clark
Sewing Machine: Bernina

I Resolve: Things To Do In 2012

With the New Year rolling in, I decided to document a few of my goals for 2012. Well, 26 goals to be exact. I made a list of action verbs that started with each letter of the alphabet. A couple of letters were tricky. My action for Z was zoom. And my action for X was to give kisses and hugs (represented as xoxo).

When I put my list into a Wordle, I got a word cloud like this:

I used the Year.o.graphy line from Simple Stories for my layout. Love that collection. It lended itself so well to this type of page. The white banner stickers and the scallop border sticker are Echo Park Paper.

This was my list of things to do in 2012:
Adapt, Balance, Create, Donate, Experiment, Fix, Garden, Hug, Invest, Join, Kneel, Listen, Make, Nurture, Organize, Pause, Question, Read, Snuggle, Try, Understand, Visit, Wander, XOXO, Yield and Zoom.

This was a really fun way to document my goals and was based on a challenge for Birds of a Feather Kit Co.

Supplies:
CS:  Bazzill Basics
PP: Simple Stories
Stickers (non letter): Simple Stories and Echo Park
Alphas: Crate Paper
Sewing Machine: Bernina

Wave Another Year Goodbye

How fast 2011 is closing to an end! It’s been a really wonderful year for me personally and creatively. I’m so thankful to my blog readers and paper crafting friends for supporting me and inspiring me. I’m looking forward to another great year together in 2012.

Below is a card I made earlier this year while guest designing for Birds of a Feather Kit Co. I used the July kit which was packed with goodies from October Afternoon and Cosmo Cricket. The script letter stickers are Webster's Pages. You can find Birds of a Feather kits here.

　

I was really excited when Cards Magazine picked this up for publication as a New Year’s card in their December 2011 issue.

　

Happy New Year, everyone. Wishing you the very best in 2012.

My Growing Boy

My baby is growing up too fast.  I caught him here last year, at age 1, before he was weaned from the bottle, dragging along his favorite blanket and toting along a puzzle. I'm so glad I thought to grab my camera and get these shots. They really take me back.  Cory went through a stage where he took that blanket and a puzzle everywhere he went: from room to room in the house, in the car, to the grocery store, at school, etc.  It was such the cutest stage.  I miss my baby!

I used the December "Naughty or Nice?" kit from Scraptastic Club.  It's full of a great mix of holiday papers from Lily Bee, Echo Park, Fancy Pants and Crate Paper.

Scraptastic Club sponsors challenges each month with great prizes. Come play along. There are four challenges and you have until Dec. 31 to upload your entries. The prize this month is the Random Collection from Crate Paper. Oh, I love that line!   You can find the challenges on the Scraptastic Club Blog here.

Favorite Gift Under The Tree

In the hustle and bustle of the holidays, I often find that I don’t scrap Christmas until well after the fact. Does this happen to you? One of the things I meant to document last year, but didn’t, was my son’s favorite Christmas present. Like so many boys his age - and older - he has an obsession with cars. In fact, this may well be a stage that boys never outgrow.

Under the tree last year, every present was wrapped except one: the Little People racetrack. My toddler is an early riser and we wanted him to have something special to find while everyone else was still nestled in bed. I got up with him at 6 am to see what Santa had brought. Cory couldn’t have been more excited. Even later that morning, as he opened present after present, he kept going back to his cars and the racetrack. It was his favorite present.

I created this layout with the Scraptastic Club’s December kit: Naughty or Nice. I’ve had such fun this month as guest designer. The kit club is running four challenges this month with a great prize: a collection kit from Crate Paper. You don’t have to use the kit to participate in challenges. You can find the details here.

Supplies:

CS: Bazzill Basics

PP: Lily Bee, Echo Park, Bo Bunny

Journaling card: Lily Bee

Wood Shapes: Studio Calico

Stickers: Crate, Echo Park

Letter Stickers: Lily Bee, Cosmo Cricket, Basic Grey

Border Punch: Fiskars

Circle Punch: Marvy Uchida

Pen: Zip

Ink: Ranger

Sewing Machine: Bernina

Kit: Scraptastic Club

August Freehand Scraps Kit

I just love the August kit from Freehand Scraps and had a wonderful time this month as guest designer. The kit is chock full of papers and embellishments from Bo Bunny, Webster’s Pages, Basic Grey and Crate and they all worked perfectly together. Here is a photo of the August Kit:

Here is one of the layouts I made from the kit::

 

This is my friend’s little girl last Halloween. Isn’t she the sweetest? I used Bo Bunny's Gabrielle papers here with embellishments from Basic Grey's Out of Print collection.  I misted the lace sticker above the photo to match her outfit and used ink and stamps to re-color the large die-cut butterfly, which is shell colored in the kit.  The letter stickers are from Webster's Pages. Here’s a closeup of the titlework.

I don't normally put the title at the bottom of the page, but it fit the design here and allowed room at the top for the butterflies to roam free.

While I had this Bo Bunny line out, I though I’d make a card. I fussy cut the big butterfly from one of the patterned papers, inked the edges, then “painted” it with Claudine Hellmuth’s multi-medium matte. I love that stuff. It is similar to modge podge but isn’t as wet or shiny. The multi-medium helped to stiffen the butterfly a little to give it more body and also allowed me to mold the wings up a bit. I added some pearls from the kit to the butterfly’s body. 

To make the card base, I used a premade 5x7 notecard from American Crafts and cut a piece of pp for the front.  I sewed it on, tucking in a border of lace from the Crate trim card in the kit. To finish the card, I added a Webster's button tied with twine (also in the kit) and stamped a short sentiment.

I'll be back later this month with more projects from the August kit. For more information about Freehand Scraps, follow this link: http://www.freehandscraps.com/