Blog Candy Winner: Cindy Vernon

Congratulations to Cindy Vernon for winning the beautiful Ribbon Candy that I offered this past week. I'm sure she'll put it to good use! Thank you all for participating.

Well, my All-Day Crop was a huge success on Saturday. I got 20 pages done!!! Of course more than half of them were all ready created from my classes, and I just had to put pictures in and add some journaling. The day just flew by, and of course I had hoped to get even more done!

Here's one of the layouts that I created. This is a layout showing a bunch of pictures that I gathered of my sweet baby Alexa. I captured several moments when she was trying to put her toes in her mouth, I just love how babies do that!!!

The background for both pages is Sahara Sand, a great neutral color to scrapbook with. I used Rebecca Designer Series paper from Stampin' Up! for the lower portions of the background. The photos were framed in Regal Rose, Sahara Sand, Close to Cocoa, and some light pink textured Bazzil Cardstock. The large Regal Rose pieces were inked along the edges with my Close to Cocoa ink pad. I stamped "baby" in Cocoa ink using my Big Deal alphabet. The "sweet" came from the Sweet Shapes set. I punched out some baby pins in Regal Rose for along the bottom edge of the left page and within one of the Sahara squares on the right page (added a cocoa pin too). I stamped 2 of the Sahara squares with the feet from "I'm Here" in Regal Rose ink.

All-Day Crop...here I come!

I'm so excited about this Saturday!! I'm going to an All-Day Crop at a local church and I'm hoping to get A LOT of scrapbooking done. My challenge now is to fit all the supplies I need in my car without having to rent a trailer!!!! It's so hard to narrow down what supplies I will be using. Too bad I can't just pack up my whole craft room in a suitcase and go!

My hope is to scrapbook the remainder of my Autumn and Winter photos from this past year. I hope that's achievable...I'm anxious to start scrapbooking more warm weather photos so I am very motivated to get this accomplished this weekend. Here's a layout that I just completed using a ready-made layout from one of the scrapbooking classes that I taught last Fall. So many of you have been telling me that you love to watercolor and so I thought you might like it. One of my favorite stamps to watercolor is the bucket of apples from "Give Thanks". So I created an Autumn page using images from this set and used it to display our photos of last year's trip to the local apple orchard. It was such a beautiful day, but it seems so long ago!

The background cardstock for both pages is So Saffron and I also used Very Vanilla, Garden Green, Chocolate Chip, Ruby Red, and Certainly Celery cardstocks as frames. The brown scratched paper is one of the double sided sheets from either the Spring Showers or Spring Flowers double sided paper pack. I used a lot of punches in this as well, circle punches for the letters (Best Friends Upper). The tag corner punch for the tag elements and the little slot punch for the twill tape to come through the tags. I fastened the twill tape with Ruby Red brads. The Ruby Red pieces of cardstock are stamped with the leaves from the set in Ruby Red ink, for some extra pattern. I used my watercolor wonder crayons for the watercoloring of the stamped images. I stamped on Very Vanilla using chocolate chip ink, colored with the crayons and then blended with blender pens. My favorite part was coloring the apples, blending the shades of ruby red and saffron to make it look realistic....yum!!

Blog Candy!!!

I know this blog is still very young compared to many other blog artists out there, but I want to celebrate my successes and reward my subscribers and fellow artists with some blog candy!! I'm getting close to 1000 hits on my blog, and I'm hoping that is a sign that I'm inspiring some people out there. Over the last few months I've gained quite a few subscribers, but I really don't know many of you. I'd like to get to know you a little bit, so here's the challenge. Comment on this post and tell me what your favorite technique is. Also, any comments on this blog would be greatly appreciated so that I can improve (what do you like/not like, what would you like to see on this blog, etc.).

Those of you who know me understand that I am a "Ribbon Freak"! I just love to collect ribbons. Recently I acquired a lot of ribbons from a local store that was closing and I'd like to share some of them for blog candy. The winner will receive over 20 2-ft strips of ribbon including a sampling of each color of the flower printed Rik Rak that I recently have been using in my scrapbooking classes, some SU! ribbon, May Arts, and others. A winner will be drawn randomly from all the entries on Tuesday June 26th. One entry per person please. Good Luck, and thanks for reading my blog!

Beate's Challenge #6

This week's challenge was to create a circle card. Here's what I came up with. A circle card was definitely more challenging, but Beate's sketch/sample really helped. I just got my Fall-Winter Collection Preview items and was excited to play with them. I used Purely Pomegranate for the card base. I created the base by creating a typical 5.5" by 4.25" card and then cutting through the front and the back of the card using the largest circle of the Coluzzle circle. I allowed the circle to go beyond the folded edge so that I would have a flat edge for the card fold (make sense?). I also used my Coluzzle to creae the circles for the focal image in So Saffron and Wild Wasabi. I used my corner rounder punch to scallop the edges of the Wild Wasabi Circle. This card uses the flowers from the new set Year after Year. I stamped the flowers in Rose Red on the base card. I stamped the flowers in Garden Green on the So Saffron Circle and colored in with Pearl Ex and Floor Wax (Painted Pearls Technique). I colored the edges with gold pearlex as well. I added a punched white circle with the Warm Words "Giggle" in Rose Red and some White Organdy Ribbon for some extra sparkle. The binding of the card was created with a strip of Wild Wasabi, and some scalloped Palette o Prints Paper. Three Saffron eyelets were added for extra embellishment.

Gate Cards (Beate's Challenge)

This week's challenge from Beate was to create a gate card. Since I had a few cards to make for some friends of mine I decided to make 2!! This one I made for some friends of ours that just found out that they're pregnant! We are so excited for them and I just couldn't wait to send them a card. I used the retiring hostess set Reason to Smile for this card. The central image was created by stamping the butterfly in Versamark on white cardstock and then sponging Pink Passion, Certainly Celery, and Tempting Turquoise chalks on it. This technique is called "Poppin' Pastels" and I haven't done it in a REALLY long time. I framed this image in Positively Pink and added a punched flower with a black eyelet center and some black gingham ribbon for embellishments. The base of the card is Pink Passion Cardstock and it is folded such that it opens from the middle (scored 2-1/8" on both sides of the 4-1/4" x 5-1/2" cardstock). I layered the sides with Tempting Turquoise and the Celery Palette of Prints Paper. I stamped the words on the bottom right corner and attached the central image to the left panel.

The second card I made was for a friend of mine that is having a touch week. The inside of this card reads thought you could use a little pickup". I'm not sure about my color choices for this card, oh well....

I used Almost Amethyst for the card base and layered the panels with Rose Red and the flowery Rose Red Palette of Prints paper. I pulled out my Loads of Love Stamp Set and Accessories for this card, which I haven't used in a while. I stamped the truck on white and colored it in with Regal Rose, Almost Amethyst, and Going Gray. I added some flowers in the back and a brunette driver. On top of the flowers I used my 2-way glue pen and dazzling diamonds to add some sparkle (hard to see in picture). For a final touch I added a white flower with a rose red brad center and some black gingham ribbon for embellishments.