Card for Kristi

I made this card for Kristi who won the blog candy that I offered earlier this month. It's a color combination I haven't tried yet, Baja Breeze and Pink Pirouette. I love these "Pocket Sillouettes" stamps, they make such simple and easy cards.

Stamps: Pocket Sillouettes
Inks: Baja Breeze
Papers: Bella Rose DS Paper, Very Vanilla, Baja Breeze, Pink Pirouette
Accessories: Button Bouquet pink flower button, Blue double stitched ribbon (retired)
Notes: I inked the edges of the patterned paper with Baja Breeze, and roughed up the edges of the focal image with the cutting kit roughening tool. The flower is fixed with a couple of mini glue dots.

Tips for beginning scrapbookers

A friend of mine on Facebook mentioned to me that she is starting an album for her son and is a bit overwhelmed. That got me thinking about how so many people never end up scrapbooking because they are overwhelmed by the prospect of it. Here's my advice for the beginner scrapbooker:

• Start simple, pick an event or finite time period to scrapbook. For example, your wedding, a vacation, your child's first few months or year of life.
• Remember that there are no real rules.
• Start with a kit. There are so many kits on the market now that make it easy for you to have virtually all the supplies you need to get started so that you can avoid the overwhelming scrapbooking aisles at the store.
• Get together with friends to scrapbook. This is a great way to share ideas, tools, and conversation. You'll get to try and see things that your friends have and decide if you need them for yourself.
• The 2 tools that you must have are adhesive, and a paper trimmer (one that can cut 12 inch paper is preferred since most papers come in 12x12 size)
• Don't feel pressured to scrapbook every photo that you have. If you have time to do that it's great, but you don't want to be overwhelmed by the burden of a huge stack of photos to scrapbook.
• Enjoy the pictures while you scrapbook. One of the reasons I love scrapbooking so much is that I get to relive the moments captured by the pictures while I'm assembling them into a page.
• Find inspiration. You can be inspired just by the pictures that you have, by ideas you get from your friends, ideas online or in magazine, anything around you. Opening yourself up to new ideas can often help you get motivated to sit down to scrapbook.

Changes to Scrappy Mama

I just wanted to let you know that sometime within the next few days you may see some changes to the "scrappymama.com" website. Right now, the scrappymama.com address points to my blog, which was originally titled "Making Time for Creativity." This blog will continue to exist, but will not be what you initially see if you find it with the scrappymama.com web address. Instead you will find a new Scrappy Mama website geared more towards finished scrapbooking themed products that I am marketing. If you have bookmarked my website after going to it, you should see no change because you have likely bookmarked the web address "gretchenstamps.blogspot.com." If you see a change to the new Scrappy Mama website, just click on the "BLOG" link and that will get you back here to this blog. Most of you will not even notice a difference, but just in case, I thought I'd warn you so you're not surprised.

I am excited about my new website which will hopefully attract clients that need some professional help completing their scrapbooking projects. I will still continue to update by blog frequently with ideas and projects from my creative process. Thank you so much for being a supporter of this blog, it's great to be connected to other creative individuals around the world!

Just for the Girls Coordinating Cards

I created this set of coordinating cards using the "She's All That" stamp set using some leftover pieces of Bella Rose Paper. I was so disappointed that this stamp set didn't make it into the regular catalog. I just love how you can use it for lots of different occasions that you girlfriends celebrate (wedding, pregnancy, birthdays, etc.). Therefore, I probably won't be giving this up anytime soon! Enjoy these card ideas, they are available in my Etsy store to purchase. Stamps: Pocket Sillouettes, She's All That
Inks: Chocolate Chip, Pink Pirouette, Riding Hood Red
Papers: Bella Rose DS Paper, Pink Pirouette, Whisper White
Accessories: Chocolate Chip Twill Ribbon

Stamps: Pocket Sillouettes, She's All That
Inks: Chocolate Chip, Riding Hood Red, Kiwi Kiss (on envelope)
Papers: Bella Rose DS Paper, Pink Pirouette, Whisper White
Accessories: Kiwi Kiss satin ribbon, Kiwi Kiss flowe button

Stamps: She's All That, Pocket Sillouettes (one envelope)
Inks: Chocolate Chip
Papers: Bella Rose DS Paper, Kiwi Kiss, Riding Hood Red
Accessories: Kiwi Kiss Satin Ribbon, Paper Piercer and template

Stamps: She's All That, Pocket Sillouettes (on envelope)
Inks: Chocolate Chip
Papers: Bella Rose DS Paper, Close to Cocoa, Chocolate Chip, Whisper White
Accessories: Circle Punches, Boho Blossoms Punch, Rhineston Brad, Scallop Punch

Winter Scrapbook Pages

I made some new winter scrapbook pages for my Etsy Store recently using up some winter themed papers that I've been holding onto for a while. This first layout is entitled "fun in the snow."

Stamps: Best Friends Alphabet lower, All Through the Year (snowflake)
Inks: Not Quite Navy
Papers:Not Quite Navy, Sage Shadow, Snowflake Designer paper (don't remember the name of the paper pack)
Accessories: Blue double stitched ribbon, Making the Grade Cricut Cartridge, White Felt Snowflakes, Silver brads

Here's the second layout entitled "winter bliss."
Stamps: Best Friends Alphabet lower, Big Deal Alphabet
Inks: Always Artichoke
Papers: Always Artichoke, Bashful Blue, Celery and White Patterned Papers(don't remember name of retired paper pack)
Accessories: White Felt snowflakes, White grosgrain ribbon

New Catalog is here!

It arrived last week and it is beautiful! I've already placed my first order so I can show off some of these new goodies at an upcoming crop I'm hosting in February. If you'd like to check it out and shop online, click here to go to my website and then click on the "Shop Now" button at the top right corner of the page.

AND ..... if you place an order on my website from February 1st - April 30th, you get a free copy of the catalog with your order!

Here's a quick list of some of my new things in the catalog so far (OK, you can tell that I'm all about accessories!):

• Corduroy buttons
• Crocheted Fleurettes
• New ribbon orignals
• Colored Flower Brads
• Gorgeous Simply Scrappin' Kits & Papers
• Texture plates for the Big Shot
• More beautiful dies for the Big Shot
• Circle Scissor Plus - super duper circle cutter
• Eyelet Border Punch

January Technique Class: Bleaching

This is th last month of the Fall/Winter Technique Series. This month's focus is bleaching, both with rubber stamps and a brush. This example uses a fresh color combonation that I haven't used in a while. It feels nice to use "springy" colors again. The flower focal image is stamped with bleach on Pink Passion cardstock.

Stamps: Pocket Sillouettes
Inks: Pink Passion, White Craft, Bleach
Papers: Pink Pirouette, Pink Passion, White, Kiwi Kiss, Bella Rose DS Paper
Accessories: Kiwi Kiss/Very Vanilla Satin Ribbon, Cutter Kit
Notes: I sponged some Pink Passion ink on the edges of the patterned paper. I roughened up the edges of the white cardstock. This design was inspired by a similar card in on of my Stampin' Up! publications.

This card also uses rubber stamps to create a bleached image on colored cardstock. I used various stamps from "Embrace Life" on each of the panels of this card.

Stamps: Embrace Life, Warm Words
Inks: Chocolate Chip, Bleach
Papers: Chocolate Chip, Old Olive, Blush Blossom, Ridinghood Red, Very Vanilla
Accessories: Paper piercing tool and template, Button Bouquet button, Ivory button
Note: This card was inspired by a sample in the upcoming Sale-A-Bration Catalog. I modified it to showcase the bleaching technique.

For this last card I used a paint brush to apply bleach to various portions of the stamped image. It took lots of playing around to get the look that I wanted. Not all papers fade significantly when bleached so as you can see, in the picture below, there was a lot of trial and error with this one.

Stamps: Serene Spring (hostess set)
Inks: Stazon Black
Papers: So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie, Basic Black
Accessories: Old Olive grosgrain ribbon, Filigree brad, So Saffron brad
Note: though I didn't do it in the finished sample, you can add color to the bleach parts after the bleach dries. I did this in a few of my trials below using colored pencils.

Blog Candy Winner

Wow! The odds were good for this candy prize. Using Random.org, Comment #4 was chosen as the blog candy winner....Congratulations Kristi! Kristi, I think I know who you are, but just in case, send me an email to claim your prize!

One of my resolutions this year is give out more blog candy, so stay tuned! Thanks everyone for the feedback.
Gretchen

Happy New Year from Scrappy Mama!

I am so excited to wish all of you a Happy New Year! As a special celebration of this great holiday, I'm going to share some candy with one of you! The Candy is a pack of my Paper Addicts Kit: Holiday Treats. This is a stack of 24- 6" x 12" sheets of Designer series paper from 4 different Stampin' Up! Designer Series Paper Packs: Ski Slope, Frosty Day, Bella Rose, and Holiday Treasures. The papers are double sided, so these photos show all the designs you will be getting if you win this prize.

Here's how to enter: Leave a comment on this post, telling me some feedback about my blog. What do you like? What would you like to see more of? What don't you like?

Please label your response with the number of your comment, and I'll use a random number generator to pick the winner in exactly 1 week, January 8th. Please only one submission per person...Good Luck!