Trying my hand at Letterpress....

I jumped onto the letterpress bandwagon when Studio Calico had a class for it, but there was a mix-up in the tools that I bought for the class, then I got sick, then I was working so many hours right before the store closed, that I never even cracked anything open and I haven't even really looked at any of the class PDF's. Finally, I had a free afternoon last weekend to spread everything out and have a go at making some letterpress cards. It takes a lot of patience and practice to get it "perfect" (at least what I perceive as perfect), but I did make a few letterpress cards that I ended up using on my layout.

I attempted two techniques - the dry letterpressing (with no ink) and the inked letterpress (with very sticky and ooey gooey ink). The dry letterpress card - which was very easy to make - has circles all over it and is layered under the butterfly paper. The inked card has the camera and saying. I used gold ink, but it actually looks like a light brown to me. The ink was so very messy and it took forever to wash up afterwards, but I am going to try and attempt to make Christmas cards this year with my letterpress stuff. Wish me luck!! :) It took several tries to get the ink pressed evenly and not smeared all over, but I do love the look and feel of the letterpress card.

For my layout, I did some watercoloring in the upper left hand corner to help balance out the dark bright colors in the opposite corner. I'm not really a ribbon person, but I love the color of the ribbon that was in my Studio Calico October kit, so I used some of it across the bottom of my photo - sort of like washi tape. Most everything I used is from my October SC kit except for the doilies and few Elle's Studio tags that I layered in spots.

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

Treasures.....

 

My mom and I recently took a roadtrip to visit my daughter in Kansas, but we also went to find some treasures at the Kansas Barn Sale and at lots of flea markets and antique stores. I got a lot of cool goodies  - some to repurpose (which I've already done to a couple of pieces in the photo) and some just to display. We got a lot of great buys and had a fun time!

 

When I got back from our trip, my October Studio Calico kit was waiting for me, so I jumped right in and used products from my kit to make my layout. I was immediately drawn to the base piece of patterned paper and wanted to just use it as is, except for the piece of washi tape across the bottom of the red stripe. I used several PL cards to layer under my photo and type my journaling on, and then layered in a few embellishments. I love the stamp and it's saying, and I thought it was perfect for what I wanted to say about my layout! The red stripe was the perfect spot to line my title up on!! After giving a few splatters of mist in the corner I was done!

 

Thanks so much for stopping by and I hope you have a wonderfully creative day!! :)

Newfound love of gold.....

I have always been a silver girl - love silver, not gold jewelry, love cool, not warm colors - but the recent upsurge of the use of gold in new scrapbook products has had me experimenting and even embracing gold on my layouts! Who know?? Certainly not me! :)

This layout includes several gold accents - Gold Lame Heidi Swapp spray mist, glitter and foil gold diecuts from the Crate Paper Pier diecut pack, a beautiful gold doily that was included in my October Studio Calico kit, and gold American Crafts POW glitter paper that I used to cut the title. I still included my blues - I don't think I can scrap without using blue in some shape or form.  

Since the photo was one of Danielle standing between two trees, I did a play on trees with my patterned papers - the blue trees, layered on top of the dark brown woodgrain paper, all layered on top of the woodgrain embossed white cardstock with the cork frame layered on top of the photo.

The title is a diecut piece from the Silhouette store by Dear Lizzy for American Crafts. I wish I had that font so I could use it all the time!! I think it's Elizabeth Kartchner's handwriting! I actually broke out one of my punches (something I haven't done in a while!!) and used it to make the butterflies - my tried and try Martha Stewart punch! I think that was the very first punch I ever bought!

Thank you so much for stopping by!! Have a great day!! :)               

Guest Designing for Pinkfresh Studio...

I was asked by Kinnari, the owner of Pinkfresh Studio, to create some projects for her blog last week and here are the projects I made! I had a great time using the cool ombre washi and the fab sticker brads and puffy stickers!

For the layout above, I used products from my September Studio Calico kit and added the awesome red puffy arrow stickers from Pinkfresh Studio. Arrows are some of my favorite embellishments to use right now!

For my Zoey Layout, I used the neon pink and lime green ombre washi tape from PF Studio to make the cool frames under the photo. The brads are actually stickers (love this concept) and I used more puffy arrows, a house and a Polaroid frame, also from PF Studio.

I couldn't resist using the blue house puffy stickers on my Little Blue House layout! I met the owner of the Little Blue House (the talented and Sweet Miss Tracy!!) while visiting my son in Texas a few months ago and it was such a treat!

 

My last projects were a couple of cards using those very cool puffy Polaroid frame stickers and the sticker brads.

Thanks so much Kinnari for letting me create with such fun embellishments! Go check out her website and see the all the fabulous goodies she has!! You won't be able to resist them!! ;)