All Is Bright

This is another one of my Christmas cards I am making this year.  First off I took a piece of white cardstock and cut it out using my Nestabilities Die Labels 8.  I took a swirl stamp and some clear embossing ink and stamped the now cut out white piece of paper.  I applied some clear sparkle embossing powder and heat it until it was set.  Next I took a sponge applicator and covered the entire pieces with Tim Holtz' Distress Ink in Tumbled Glass.  I then took another sponge applicator and added in Tim Holtz's  Distress Ink in Broken China starting on the outside and blending about half way in.  And then finally I took Tim Holtz' Distress Ink in Faded Jeans and lightly applied a little around the edge with a sponge applicator.  Tada, isn't it beautiful?  Now I wanted to mat that on another pattern so I took the next die size up in the Nestabilities Die Label 8 set and cut out a piece of Basic Grey's Jovial paper.  I adhered the two together.  Next I cut out another pattern in the Basic Grey's Jovial paper to 4.25"x5.5" to cover the card.  I adhered a piece of ribbon in the middle and then adhered the matted pieces on top of that.  Now the fun part becomes ... embellishing!  I decided I wanted something different for the tree so I took a pipe cleaner, bought at any craft store or even Walmart, and started at the top and started bending it back and forth making sure each layer was bigger then the previous.  I tried many different glues (fabric tack and glossy accents) to get the tree to stick to my card but it didn't seem to work so I broke out the good ol' glue gun.  Just watch your fingers!  I took a star jewel and stuck it above the tree and then added a chipboard sentiment.  And that is how I made this card.  Hope you like it!

Happy Holidays

Another one of my Christmas cards this year.  I love this paper collection by My Mind's Eye called Colorful Christmas.  This card was pretty easy, it's just varying sizes of paper cut and then border punched on one side and layered on top of one another.  I then used a journalling spot from the die cut sheet and a couple of the snow flakes as my greeting.  To give some of these elements I used a little bit of dimension, I added some glossy accents.  I then took my label maker and typed out Happy Holidays and adhered it to the journalling spot.  A very pretty and easy card.

Holidays

I will admit before I start that this was a difficult card with a lot of steps.  I'm not sure if I would do another one or not but I do love the look of it when it was done.  So I bet you are wondering how I did this.  First thing you do is create the background scene.  Cut the farthest layer (in my case the blue with the light swirl pattern) and to the size of your card.  Next, layer on the scene you want, making sure to adhere all of the layers really well as you do not want your loose (inside the pocket shaker part) items to get stuck behind them.  Once you have the scene you want, take an old bubble pack from something you purchase, I think mine came from a pack of buttons or chipboard.  Cur around the bubble part making sure you leave about a 1/4" of trim so that you have somewhere to put your glue.  Next you need to find the loose items you want to put inside the shaker part.  I used snow flakes but you could use buttons, glitter, beads, jewels, etc.  Play around with the shaker pieces and the bubble to see if you have the right amount.  Once you do pile all the shaker pieces on top, in the center, of the background you built.  Now take a good adhesive, I used Glossy Accents, and cover the lip of the bubble that will make contact with your background.  Make sure there is glue all the way around or some of your shaker items may fall out, but be careful not to apply to much or it will ooze everywhere.  Now you need to let this sit and dry (about 1/2 hr) and do not shake it until then or your shaker pieces could get stuck in some over flow adhesive. Now the tricky part, my pink piece.  You need to cut what I call a hider piece.  This hider piece will cover up all the adhesive and bubble lip of your shaker.  Now I advise not cutting the paper to the size of the card just yet.  First cut out the window to fit around your bubble piece and then when in place trim off the excess, other wise, if your window is not in the right place the hider piece won' fit the card properly.  Trust me I know!  Once I got my hider piece on, I added a piece of ribbon, a sentiment and a brad to finish it off.  Oh and of course my cute little polar bear on the front of the shaker box.

Warm Holiday Wishes

This is a card I made for Christmas and it was inspired by another sketch by Allison Davis. I was quite liberal with the design. For some reason when I saw this sketch, I thought of hot chocolate with swirls instead of the circles. Can you tell I'm in the Christmas mood?  The coffee cup is from Cricut's Christmas Cheer Cartridge and is cut at 3.5". I cut one out in blackout mode in white to serve as my base.  Next I cut out another one in blackout mode in brown and trimmed a little off the top so when it sat on top of the first one I cut you could see a little bit of the white at the top, which would be the back of the cup.  Next I cut out 4 of the shift + cup in white and then cut the top loop of the cup off of each.  I now stacked and glued all my layers together.  I stamped a little snow flake on the front of the cup and then took my Glossy Accents and outline it.  I also used Glossy Accents on the brown to make it look like liquid.  Because of all of the layers in this cup it now has quite a bit of dimension and weight.  I then adhered it to a piece of Cosmo Cricket Christmas paper that I had distressed the edges of.  Then I took a pencil and drew some swirls coming out of the cup and across the page.  Once I had the look I wanted I took my paper pierce and poked out the pattern.  I erased the pencil lines and then got to work on stitching.  I added a stamped sentiment and I was done.  Hope you like it.

Images of My Hotel

The resort we stayed at while we were in Cuba was beautiful.  I loved all the bright colors of the building, the beautiful white sandy beach, and the very friendly staff!

This is actually a 12 x 28 layout. The extra 4 inches are contained within the flap on left hand side. I use these things called Flip Flaps from Creative Memories which attach to my page protector to give me another 4 inches of layout space. Totally sweet for layouts with tons of photos.

Here's a look at what it looks like with the flap open:


This layout is based on another sketch by Allison Davis. her sketches are so awesome because she gets so many photos on a double page layout. If you have never seen her work you should check her out, you can find her blog in my  Favorite Blogs List.

Two Years!

It's hard to believe I have been blogging for 2 years now! Where does the time go? It has been a lot of fun that is for sure. Yes there has been times where I seemed to drop of the face of the earth but do you really blame me ... we only get 2 months of really nice weather (aka Calgary Summer) and I like to soak every minute of it up! Anyways, I just want to say thank-you for visiting and commenting on my blog and I'll see you around the blogs!

Wind Swept Moment

When I saw this picture of my parents I thought it had to be one of the best pictures I have ever seen of the two of them. It was taken in Cuba this past February on the beach in Varadero. It was a really windy day which gave us some awesome pictures of the ocean. I love how my Dad is going in for the kiss and my Mom is trying to hold her hair. Beautiful!


I used another sketch by Allison Davis and it called for 3 photos. Now I didn't really have three photos that I liked together because I wanted the focus to be on my parents so I decided to use another photo of just the ocean instead and cut it in half and placed it on each side of the picture of my parents. I also love the softness of the colours used in this layout, it gives it a real romantic feeling. I kept the embellishing simple so that the photos would be the main focus, all I added were a couple of clouds and that was it.

When I Was a Kid

I'm sure you've all seen that email that has been circulating around for years that was about how easy today's kids have it. Well I thought it would be a perfect layout with photos of the items that I had to use as a kid. I had so much fun with it! I took snippets from the email, modified them slightly so that they were more specific to my childhood and printed them in talk bubbles which I put on my layout next to the images.  For the images, I just found them using google image search.  I'm sure one day, I will say "when I was kid" to my kids and now I can pull out this layout and show them the pictures of the items I was talking about.

Merry Christmas Card

Christmas is quickly coming and this year I am hoping to get a little bit of a head start on the my Christmas cards. I saw the template for this card and instantly wanted to try it. It is very labour intensive but I love the look of it.

And this is what it looks like all folded up.

I used Basic Grey's new Christmas line called Jovial and I just love the colors!

Here's the sketch I used for the card and you can find the original post here.

Us In Numbers

I saw this layout in the July/August Issue of Creating Keepsakes and absolutely loved it! After all, immitation is the best form of flattery!

I used My Mind's Eye Love Me Do Collection. The funny thing is that I saw the layout and wanted to do it but I didn't have it in front of me when the time came so I just winged it and I ended up using the exact same paper line the G. Gubler used!

Old & New

For this layout I used some Jillibean papers. I have never used Jillibean papers before, not sure why. I have used their journalling spots for a long time so I figured it was about time I got my hands on some of their paper. I must admit after working with it I have become a fan of their paper too. Their designs are super cute; can't wait to get my hands on their new lines!

Vancouver 2010

The Olympics this year, were in my home country and all though I did not go to Vancouver to watch them, I definitely felt close to the action! I can remember a previous Olympics where I pretty much watched all of the events I could ... it was definitely must see tv and a very proud time for Canadians!

I wanted to remember it so I searched the web for a bunch of pictures and then made a collage in photoshop. Each little photo has the Athlete's name and the medal they one, which I also added in photoshop. It was a quick and easy way to scrapbook a lot of information.

Home Sweet Bed

I recently got my hands on the American Crafts & Dear Lizzy collection called Enchanted and thought it would be perfect for a layout about one of my favorite places in our house. The papers coordinated perfectly with my bedroom colours! I will admit it was a big feat to cut each 1 inch square and to line up the grid perfectly. Luckily my stitching with my sewing machine covered up any minor mistakes!

Heritage Park

My cousin and her daughter came out for a visit for a couple of days. I decided to take them out to Heritage Park for the day. We had a great time, especially Lucy, who loved the caterpillar ride.

I used mostly the Summer Breeze collection from My Little Shoebox.  I absolutely loved the banner patterned paper and thought it went perfectly with the photos.  I added dimension to the page by curling the edges of the flower and by adding Glossy Accent dots to another flower shape.