Frosted Designs Metal challenge-Ornaments

     Here is my project for the Design team at Frosted Designs to use Metal this week....So , I thought lets make some ornaments for my 2 (girls) dogs this year and so I got my Cricut Machine and Gypsy out and played around with the different cartridges and found this. I used Graphically Speaking for the metal banner and Christmas Cheer for the tag look ornaments in 2 sizes. I used a bright pink cardstock since I like bright colors on my tree lately and white cardstock for the banner and then cut out some medium weight aluminum the same as the banner.

 I use my light box and a embossing metal alpha template for the names and then used my Cuttlebug and folder to dry embossed the pink ornaments- which I then used 7 different colors of Stickles and colored over the embossed circles. I then tied and ribbon to hang  the ornaments  and made a bow with silver & white ribbons and glued them on the top. I  used 3-D Zots in between the two different sizes of ornaments and under the metal banner to give it more demension. Which  the inked edges in pink and silver helped a little bit more also.

It was hard to take a picture without the glare of the metal -which will make them show &glow and sparkle  really good on the Christmas tree- This one has the name IZZY for one of my dogs. On the other side is the same thing except the banner has 2011 embossed on it- which I forgot to take a picture of the back side --oops! So hopefully this was inspirational to you and maybe you might make a few of these simple yet cute ornaments for your family tree. So be sure to enter into the Metal Challenge this week over at Frosted Designs for a chance to win a fabulous prize from One Stop Card Crafts.

Happy Thanksgiving to Everyone!!!

     Hope you all are enjoying this wonderful Thanksgiving Day...I am with my daughter and her fiance and his side of the family this year-due to the fact that I am going thru a rough time in my life- with my divorce, so its going to be a bit difficult to deal with the upcoming holidays....But, I know I will be with good company-- family and some new friends... so I am thankful for that this year, and knowing that my other 3 children (all in different states) are all healthy and doing well.
     So the other night, I thought what can I make to bring over to Thanksgiving get together that is creative-since I love to do this kinda stuff and I thought name cards would be simple and easy- so this is what I came up with and made 25 of them in about 3 hours.

 I went thru my fall stash of papers and embellishments and grabbed the fall colors of cardstock and used my Scor-pal and made the place cards first, then cut the papers to size and inked the edges and made little tags for the names and tied on some scrappers floss and curled it. The diamond shape embellishments were cut from a 12 x 12 special glitter patterned paper and attached with pop dots.

Inside I wrote on each one:  What are you thankful for this year? we will  fill/write it out before dinner and then during dinner we will go around the table and tell everyone what we have written. It will be a great conversion piece and a nice way to hear and talk to everyone at the table- all 23 of us - WOW- this might take awhile, but that will be the best part of it- so we can enjoy the great food that everyone has contributed to this great feast and wonderful day!
                             Thanks for stopping by and Happy Thanksgiving...

Pumpkin Carving-SWEET

Another layout I did this week is for Sketches in Thyme #60- which I only had this one picture to scrap, so I made it work with this sketch. It's of a pumpkin my son carved back in 2007- when the Chicago Bears were doing great...lol, and he did such a great job carving the Bear logo on this pumpkin I had to scrap it for his book.

 All the papers are from my Halloween stash- which is a very large 12 x 12 box full and some are quite old and have no company names on them- but they work just as well. The pumpkin saying sticker is from EK Success and I hand cut the flag banners. All the other embellies are to from the stash and put on with pop dots. I tore some paper and inked edges in purple, used black and purple pieces of cardstock for the mats. The black embossed shiny background paper kinda reminds me of the carving look on the pumpkin- and makes the whole layout really pop with the orange and pola dot papers I used.

 I did a little bit of journaling and then went over it in bright green chalk to stand out a little more. Also used some halloween ribbon and stapled them to the page. The cute little saying "Sweet" is perfect for this page- because at that time -- that is exactly the word my son used to describe his carving project...SWEET

Like Father...Like Son

Here is my take for Sketchy Thursdays this week. I took these pictures of my son back when he was in High School- because he reminded my of his father so much when he was the same age.
I used My Mind's Eye papers, Tim Holtz distress inks, expoxy buttons, handmade florettes with papers, brads, Stamps by Autumn Leaves and Stempendous, black inks and marker for faux stitching.

 On the background I splattered/flickered white and blue-grey paint all over page before I put all the pics on.

My first layout for My Mind's Eye challenge #19

I was excited to find this blog site --My Mind's Eye-- a few weeks back- but, I have so many challenges that I want to do- and not enough time to do them all. So, I put aside one day to finally do a challenge for My Mind's Eye- which I love all their papers- so pretty sometimes I don't want to use them- so I save them for that special page. Well here is my special layout I did with their sketch and to use the color brown, also. I just love this color combo.

Of course, all the papers I used were My Mind's Eye- So Sophie, Lime twist, Life Stories,and several paperes from the Complete Boy paper stack. I also used a circle punch, crimper, chipboard inked and some sticker alpha's, teal ribbon, a florette (that I made) with My Mind's Eye paper, epoxy grey sticker buttons, and hand stitched in brown embroidery floss  -x- x -x- all around the edge and a few x x x on the kraft strip

Fantasy Island layout

I just love the colors in this layout!!! I did for my daughters book of one of her many high school dances. I will be applying this layout to several challenges- I used the sketch from SOUS- which I love their sketches and was inspired by the other challenge they have, to use die cuts-LEAVES....so two challenges are for Stuck on U Sketches and the other one was a recipe challenge over at Memorable Seasons to have the following :                 Scalloped edge- 2 pics- a banner- 3 leaves - and a pinch of stitching.

Materials used:
My Minds eye scalloped die cut paper
Bo Bunny peach dot paper
DCWV yellow paper (cricle chalked)
Basic Grey-teal paper
White cardstock for all cuts
Cricut Cartridges-Lifes a Beach/Straight from the Nest
Chalks, , rhinestones, Stickles,
blue embroidery floss for waves
Jim Holtz distressing inks- several colors
pop dots, yes paste
palm tree brad

I really enjoyed doing this layout-I could vision what I wanted for this layout and it all fell into to place so well- I like to make my own embellies so this was fun for me to do with all the leaves and flowers and stitching, inking and chalking- which took alittle bit of time so worth it.

Happy Birthday-DAD!!!--- 4 layouts

Wow- was I ever busy this weekend doing 4 pages for my kids scrapbooks using all the same pictures, but 4 different layouts and papers on them --I used the sketch over at  Sketchy Thursday to do one of the layouts for my sons scrapbook (who is in both of the top pics) . They (all my kids) were at their dad's house celebrating his 47th birthday a few years back and they took these few pictures and wanted me to scrap them. I have uploaded all 4 of the layouts in this post -  the first one I will be applying to Sketchy Thursday challenge this week.
     I used Tattered Angel Mists for the background on white textured cardstock and then went thru my stash and found strips of papers , then machine stitched the border in black thread added or stamped a few swirls . I hand stamped the title and the saying then cut them out and put on with pop dots. The saying is " You never know when your making a Memory."

 This next layout is for my oldest daughter's scrapbook (blue & grey sweater in center photo)  and I will be applying this over at The Paper Variety for the challenge this week "Family" All the papers used in the next three layouts are from the Recollections paper stack. I machine stitched around the inside border( blue and grey circle pattern) which matches the colors in my daughters sweater and stamped (Cloud 9) design all around the edge and some misc. leaves and saying inked with a light blue. Made my own journal tag and inked  all edges of mats with black. I like how I scattered the photos-and put them at different angles it gives the page some motion and fun like feeling- which is what my kids had- a great & fun time.

 The next layout is for my son who is in the yellow and brown striped shirt in the photo -so that is the reason I pulled these colors out for this layout. I used my Fiskars circle cutter for the 4 circles, brown inked edges and blue/teal ink for the mats, Stamps (variety) for the title -saying -leaves -hand cut out and attached with pop dots and some journaling on the circles. I like the color combo in this layout the best-which make the pictures really pop.

 And the last or 4th layout is for my other daughter who is in the top left photo - and I really didnt have a color to pull out from her clothing so I went with the pink - for her rosy cheeks....and browns. I matted all the photos with white cardstock (which make them stand out against the pinks and brown papers) and just inked the outside edge of the layout. Again, I used Papers from Recollections and all the same stamps- and did the journaling on the blue/teal striped paper. The "Dad" is not a stamp- I hand wrote them since I couldn't find a big stamp like I wanted.

I had a fun time doing these layouts this weekend and I'm glad you took the time to come and check them out. I know I have a silly madness to how I try to pull out colors and how I lay out my photos- so each child stands out in their layout- it also helps me to  remember which one goes in what scrapbook...if this makes any sense ---it works for me.

Such a Cute Couple

 I just love the colors on this layout I did from the sketch over at Sketches in Thyme this week and also the recipe challenge at Scrap Our Stash - which consisted of :   5 embellishments- 4 words or letters in a title-
                                                                                          3 pictures-2 pattern papers- 1 solid paper.
All my papers are from a Recollections paper stack- and white cardstock for all the Cricut cuts. I used 3 cartridges: Calligraphy Collection-Accent Essentials and Wild Card, which then I embossed with my Cuttle bug and folders and then I heat embossed them with 3 different powders- Silver, Pink and Red which you can see a close-up of the hearts that I did this technique on. Which is also the challenge this week over at Frosted Designs- heat or dry Embossing on a project.

      I also used a Recollections x x x border punch, brown inked edges on layout and pop dots. So I will be applying this layout for 3 challenges ( Frosted Designs as a Design team member). This cute couple is my son and his girlfriend when they first started dating in the end of  2006- beginning of 2007.

Embossing for Frosted Design weekly challenge

Here is a photo of my (Happy looking son) in his Freshman year in High School- I know he had a better year than what his expression is saying here- but I still needed to scrap this for his book. I used several papers from My Mind's Eye Complete Boy stack and layered them. I pulled out the colors in his pinkish-purple shirt to cut out the stamps and embossed them (with my CuttleBug and several different design folders)and then layered them also with pop dots. I used my Gypsy along with the Cricut to cut out the tag and the years and the school zone -used the Graphically Speaking cartridge. Stamped with Martha Stewart varsity letters the title on the tag and colored them in with markers and added some black and white ribbons.
      Well thanks for stopping by and looking at my project for this weeks challenge over at Frosted Designs to heat/dry emboss. I hope to inspire you to create some project and enter for a chance to win some great prizes from Mold Muse this week.

Creative Scrappers #180 / Humorous layout

Here is a humorous layout I did of my son a few years back during  the summer month of July. You know how you tell your kids everyday to wear sunscreen as they walk out the door and they kinda roll their eyes at ya- like yeah you say that all the time- I know I will"  Well guess what my son didn't wear that day? or at least he didn't put any on his face, while he was sightseeing down on Lake Mischigan in Chicago for the day.
At this is the result of that afternoon. Too funny- now. But he was burning up that night. I bet he remembers to put sunscreen on when he goes out for the day!
Well this is a sketch from Creative Scrappers #180 that I used for this and also for the challenge over at The Paper Variety to do a humorous project- and I think this will qualify for that.

I used several papers from my stash along with a large scalloped die cut from My Little Shoebox. Journal tag, inked with yellow, foam stamps with orange ink, pinking shears, and a cut out embellie, and some rub-on letters. Also from my large stash some chipboard letters for part of the title.

One layout for two challenges

This week over at Sketchy Thursdays I used their sketch and over at Scrapbookers Anonymous the challenge was Ribbons- at least 7 different ribbons and I did that on this layout this week. A few photos of my daughter back in 2002 at a few of her high school dances.

 As you can see in the pic I used more than 7- but 9 different ribbons, a variety of silk flowers, Tulip paint for the flourishes I drew on, punches(scalloped and border), staples, green florist leaves, stickles, inks and the paper was a special on e from a K&Company stack

 On the bottom border I used all black and white ribbons I had and stapled them underneath the border punch strip and looped them and made my own tags for journaling, and on the top I used marroon colored ribbons for the corner of the pictures and the bow underneath the other journal tag. The gold and white lace trim ribbon (hard to see in the photo) is along the outseide edge of each of the two photos

Thanks for stopping by and enjoy your Monday!

Here's one for Let's Capture these Sketches

 I just love the colors in this layout I did of my Aunt and Uncle- taken this summer up in the UP on Lake Superior as the background. I used several papers from my stash to punch out all the layered flowers and added brads to the centers of them. I placed a doiley underneath the photo and added my own flourishes with Tulip fabric paints.

I used the Martha Stewart butterfly punch and added red stickles to them and pop dots to give them dimension. The main background paper is my K&company which was a Christmas paper- but it had all the colors I wanted to pull out from the photo. I really liked how this page turned out.
I will be appying this over at Lets Capture these Sketches this week.

Stuck on U Sketches-JAXS

 Here is my layout this week for SOUS- I turned the sketch around abit to fit my photos and angled my title of JAXS. This is a few photos of my daughter and her Fiance" and their sweet little puppy ( now a year old) taken last fall during the football season- as you can tell by the football (Bears) attire, they are wearing. I used several papers -torn and inked all edges. I stamped little paw prints on the background and used some sut out dog phrases and used pop dots for them

Then found some chipboard and painted dark blue then added fine glitter to them to shine a bit- and I just torn the red cardstock in the shape of hearts and stamped on them.