My Minds Eye Halloween...

I don't do many layouts of Halloween - I have tons of photos but I can never find the right paper to use, but I was thrilled to be able to try the new My Minds Eye Halloween line for some design team work at my local scrapbook store - Scrapbook Zone! The colors are nice and muted with just a little glittery zing and it has a nice vintage feel to it without going overboard, and I love the brads (which is always my favorite by MME anyway!).

I used some photos of my youngest daughter from last year. I cut the spiderweb doily using my Silhouette Cameo, which I cut in half to layer at the top and bottom of the layout. I made some rosettes and flowers and used the brads from the pack as the centers. I hated to lay my photo on top of the glitter scroll at the center of the layout, so I trimmed around the scroll with my craft knife and layered it on top of the photo! I used the spider web to house my journaling which I wrote using a pencil. I've been using just a regular pencil for my journaling lately - it's so much more subtle!

Thank so much for looking and have a wonderful day!  :)

A new adventure...

 



While recently shopping in my local scrapbook store - The Scrapbook Zone - the owner Robin, who is the nicest lady, asked my to join her new design team for the store. I was thrilled and of course said yes!! The two layouts above are a couple of my first layouts that I made for the store.

The top layout was made using My Minds Eye - On the Bright Side - which only has patterned papers and a diecut sheet. I challenged myself to only use those items and keep the extras to a minimum. The only extras I used were some cardstock, a vintage button, and a glassine envelope that is layered under the photo and houses my journaling tag. I did some cutting on my Silhouette Cameo and some machine stitching. The photo of of my daughter at the harbor in Ocean Springs, MS, so I wanted the layout to have a nautical feel.

The bottom layout is made using October Afternoon Woodland Park and a couple of bits from Studio Calico (wood veneer butterflies and spray mist) and Bella Blvd (washi tape and buttons).

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!!

A motto I try to live by.....

I love that saying - and it's a belief that I've tried to instill in my kids. We may not have always had a lot of money (think - a senior airman in the Air Force with two babies!), but I have always found a way to have fun, especially with my kids. When they were babies, we walked and biked a lot!! Lots of picnics with homemade sandwiches, playgrounds, duck feeding, investigating interesting (free) places, playing with chalk (buckets and buckets), sprinklers, local beaches, lots of library time. No matter where we went I made sure we'd laugh and have fun. As my kids have gotten older (and we now make plenty money), we still like to go out and about and be silly and have fun! Sometimes all it takes is a mural and a camera on a phone! Danielle was having fun with her new hat and when she saw the mural on the side of the wall of a building she ran over and posed in front of it - a picture perfect moment!! I think she gets what I've tried to teach her - enjoy life every day - even the little things!!
I used products from my September Studio Calico kit to make this layout. I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the saying from the striped paper and then backed it with contrasting paper. I used several American Crafts Amy Tangerine diecuts - I love those so much - and a few of the Studio Calico diecuts also. The stamped saying at the bottom is one of my favorite stamps made by Studio Calico - I think I've used it more than any of the other stamps that I have! I used Versamark ink for the first time to stamp it and I must say I really love the way it stamped - better than Stazon which has been my ink choice forever!

Thanks for stopping by and have a happy day!! :)

Ella Publishing + BPC = WIN plus 2 giveaways!!

Big Picture Classes can now add “publisher” to its educational resume! We’re thrilled to announce that Ella Publishing Co., home of top-quality eBooks for scrapbookers and crafters, is now a part of the Big Picture Classes family.The unparalleled inventory of workshops and classes at bigpictureclasses.com is continuing to grow and expand—and Ella’s complete library of eBooks (past, current, and future) will soon be available at bigpictureclasses.com as well.

Even more exciting is the reunion of the visionary team that brought the world of Simple Scrapbooks Magazine (2002-2009). Stacy Julian, Angie Lucas, Wendy Smedley, and Cathy Zielske are back together under one umbrella—along with the other valued staff members of both companies

And now the Giveaway!! I have a BPC photography class to give away taught by Tracey Clark. You have until Sunday September 16th at midnight CST to leave a comment on this post. I will randomly choose a winner on monday morning! Here are the details!

Big Picture Classes Picture Color Giveaway Information

Picture Color taught by Tracey Clark

30 Day self-paced classfor $30

http://www.bigpictureclasses.com/picturecolorsp.php

Class Description

Through this 30-day photo centric celebration, Picture Color will encourage you to turn your lens toward the colors that delight you most. With daily email prompts delivered right to your inbox, you will be greeted and inspired by a myriad of colorful shades to awaken your senses and your inner-artist as your camera clicks color after vibrant color!

read rest of description and register here.

 

 

And don't forget you Take 12 layouts and photos!! Ella Publishing is giving away another great class just for uploading your project by Septmeber 18th here. The winner will be announced on Sept. 19th.

 

Boot Camp 2012 with four all-star coaches Ali Edwards, Cathy Zielske, Tracey Clark, Amy Powers
Boot Camp lasts for 12 days and costs $40
Camp starts 10/15/2012

Class DescriptionShape up your scrapbooking, photography, and general crafting skills with help from our four expert coaches

Here's How it Works
You'll log in daily for a 10-minute video from one of our 4 coaches followed by a 10-minute targeted exercise that's guaranteed to:
jumpstart your creativity
exercise your scrapbooking muscles
give you a concrete starting point to get something done NOW
inspire you with lasting skills and ideas you'll want to apply over and over

New to Big Picture Classes?
Learn more here.

To enter, upload your visual to your blog or any photo-sharing service (including the 2012 Take Twelve Flickr group), then link it up here by midnight EST Tuesday, September 18. One lucky participant will be drawn at random from the entries below and announced on September 19. Have fun!

 

Good luck and thanks so much for stopping by!!

 

 

 

 

Lots of white space with pops of bright colors....

This is not my usual type of layout. I'm a layering, muted, dreamy colors with lots of blues and yellows type scrapper, but I am loving going out of my comfort zone to use these bright colors that are in my Studio Calico kits for the past two months. I still can't help myself and and I find myself pairing the muted and blues and yellows together. But every once in a while I like to do something different to shake things up!

This is my little cutie Maltese, Zoey, who loves to bring her tattered and worn bird to me to throw over and over and over again. It's her favorite game, and I just CANNOT resist that cute face with those dark little eyes staring up at me! She has me trained well...LOL!

I took the photos with my Instax Polaroid camera. I wanted to use the fun striped paper as a base area and I just layered some of the Amy Tan diecuts (that I ordered extra that did not come in the kit) all around the photos. I used some washi tape to make a frame around the entire 12x12 sheet of woodgrain cardstock, then dotted a few sequins and mists at the edges. The word bubble was cut from one of the sheets of patterned paper from an add-on and then I used the very cool American Crafts vinyl letters inside of it for the title. I think the title fits the photos perfectly!! :)

Thanks so much for looking and have a great day!! :)

Life is an Adventure.....

This is a layout of my youngest daughter Danielle. This is part of her senior portraits that I took of her this summer. I love the soft look and feel to this layout and I wanted it all to represent her upcoming journey into life - an adventure waiting to happen!

I used products from my new September Studio Calico kit that I just received last week. I absolutely love the Basic Grey "Clippings" line of papers and embellishments that are in the kit. I used several pieces for the layering around my photo. I added all of the large gold sequins that were in my kit and some pearl brads (Basic Grey). After cutting out part of the title with my silhouette and attaching it to my layout, I used some of the very cool clear vinyl Amy Tangerine American Crafts letters and then edged around them with my white Uniball pen to complete it. I inked some wood veneer butterflies and scattered them on my layout and I was done!

Thanks so much for looking and have a great day!! :)

a new friend....

This is a layout of some photos of my husband walking around downtown Cozumel while we were on vacation and a dog started following him. It followed him for quite a while and he never even noticed until I pointed it out to him! These were taken in July of 2008, and I finally got around to scrapping them! I used products from my August Studio Calico and a few things from my stash (the wood veneer pieces, the flair button, and the journal spot which is one made by Lily Bee - I just found the pack yesterday when I was looking for something else! I loved those journal spots when I bought them, and then they got lost in my stuff! So glad I stumbled upon them because it matched the navy perfectly!).

The piece of cardstock with the orange and yellow painted side was a leftover end piece from a different project that I was working on that I used on another project. I had heat embossed a stamped border, then used my mists to paint over it to give it an ombre look. I ended up using just the strip and cut this side off and loved the way it looked and wanted to use it on a layout. The colors reminded me of the buildings in Cozumel that were painted such beautiful colors so I finally got out a few vacation photos to scrap. I have a few more photos from that vacation that will be showing up soon on some future layouts!

I can't believe that I finally finished off just about a whole entire SC kit (with 2 add-ons and extra paper to boot). I've never done that before! I have 2 whole pieces of patterned paper left that just don't go with anything that I'm working on right now, and just about all of the embellishments are gone so I'm calling it done! And just in time too because I got my September kit in today with tons of extras to use. :)

Have a great day and thanks so much for stopping by!! :)

d & me

I made this layout for a challenge over on the Studio Calico forums board here - it was a lift a layout from the person above you challenge. So, when someone posted a message on the post, the next person that posted would then choose a layout from that first person to scraplift. It was a fun challenge and the person I got to scraplift from had many super cute layouts to choose from.

I am on the verge of using up the rest of my August Studio Calico kit (thank goodness as I got so much scrappy goodness in their blowout sale that will be here next week as well as the usual month kit with add-ons!!) so I was glad to use some of my scraps here. Studio Calico has also started to offer printables every month to coordinate with the kit of that month, and I used 3 of the journal cards that I printed out. There several other designs on the sheet that I have used on other layouts this month. I used a piece of patterned paper (the turquoise piece) that I had punched some confetti dots for one of my confetti pouches on an earlier layout. I have hoarded all the bits left from that piece of butterfly papers and I used some of the pieces in various spots. I cut the Polaroid frames with my Silhouette Cameo. I used some wood veneer camera pieces as accents - I first tried to stamp on them, and even though they turned out great, I didn't like the color. So, I used my silver Mister Huey to color them and give them a more subtle color. They aren't really silvery - more gray - but I like the way look better than the black that I first tried.

When I first started my layout, I wanted to use on ombre piece of cardstock that I had embossed with a pattern and then painted over it with different colored Mister Hueys and Maya Mists, but it just didn't work out, so I layered it under the cut-out parts of my Polaroid frames instead. For my title I used some small Making Memories wooden letter stamps and Prima ink.

Thanks so much for looking and I hope you have a great day!! :)