Birthday Treat Holder

Amie's 6th birthday is fast approaching - wow, where did 6 years go?!! She's having it at a venue that's providing loot bags, but I wanted to give a little treat out as well. Also, she's having boys and girls so I needed to have something for both.

I used my Gypsy and the Art Philosophy Cricut cart, which I turn to time and time again. I turned the fry box cut 90* and increased the size as large as I could go on a 6x12 mat, which ended up to be about 6" wide and 9" long.

I cut both the butterfly and the star from this cartridge as well, just eyeballing what size I wanted. I used a glittery cardstock for both, and  I stamped and embossed the Thanks at the bottom with silver embossing powder. After putting them together I sponged the edges with Distress Ink since the cardstock was white core. I absolutely love the Black Soot Distress Ink! I ended up making 5 boy and 4 girl treat holders and it didn't take long at all.

 

Challenges-

Freshly Brewed - Anything Goes

Bunny Zoe - Anything Goes

Cards Galore - Anything Goes



Celebrate Love!

We recently got some family pictures done and I had them take a few extra of the baby since we didn't have any recent professional photos.  I saw a really cute and easy video mini album tutorial by Linda Bauwin using one sheet of 12x12 cardstock and decided to join in the fun over at Scrapbooker's Paradise Celebrate challenge this week where they are celebrating their 100th challenge! They have some great prizes to be won so be sure to check the blog!

I also found 2 new (to me) challenge blogs so I'm entering those too! Dutch Dare blog's challenge this week is to use buttons and Card Crafter's Circle challenge is to use layers.

I am using the CTMH Wings kit, which has lots of beautiful paper and fun stickers and embellishments, including buttons! The mini album is made from Kraft cardstock - which I love!

The cover:

I used heart rub-ons, a Love stamp along the bottom and two sticker buttons layered on top of the paper.  I stamped Celebrate along the paper band.

Inside:

I layered a length of paper over the bottom pockets and placed my tags inside.

Photo tags:

I used black soot Distress Ink around the edges and cropped the photos to fit.

White tags:

I used red ink to Distress the edges of these tags and stamped along the bottom of each tag.  I added stamps, stickers, brads and ribbon.  Have a look at the black brads below the ribbon - they are little tiny buttons! How cute!

 

Inside:

I cut a piece of matching butterfly paper to fit inside above the pocket.

I thought Celebrate Love was a great title to my mini album.  There are so many things to celebrate - Erica coming into our lives and her recent birthday to name just a couple.  I think I will add journaling to the back of the white tags and it will be a great keepsake for her :)

Thanks for joining me! Happy Monday!

Page Map Scrapbooking

I just printed off a whole bunch of pictures and pulled out a CTMH paper kit - Wings, which I have had for quite some time! One of my resolutions this year is to use up my paper stash :-)

I really like using a sketch as inspiration and there are some great sites out there as well as great Pinterest ideas.

I got the ideas for these two layouts from http://www.pagemaps.com/jan13maps.htm

Art Journalling

I am so excited to start some art journalling in the beautiful Dyan Reavely Art Journal! I purchased 3 of the Dylusion sprays, which are gorgeous! I will definitely have to put more of those on my wish list!

I sprayed the inks on, spritzed water over stencils to create a bleaching effect, sprayed ink through the stencils and turned them over to create a negative impression as well, stamped with black archival ink, used Tim Holtz Distress Stains to stencil flowers, painted the butterflies and bird with Distress Stains, spritzed with Shimmer Spray, and doodled with a black permanent pen and a white Jellyroll gel pen.

This was sooooo much fun! Even after doing all this stuff on the page nothing soaked through to the other side of the paper! It's such a nice journal. I'm so looking forward to trying out lots of new and old techniques.

For lots of journalling inspiration check out http://artjournaling.tumblr.com/page/7 and Pinterest has some great ideas as well!

Dyan also has some great videos out showing how to use her inks and how to create amazing journalling pages. Check out http://youtu.be/4kwJxqKJYj8 .

Collage

On New Year's Day this year my beautiful sister came over and we made collages!

I've always looked at collages and wanted to try them but didn't know where to start. I recently took a brief altered book class, which used collage and just decided to dive in!

Two great books to get started are Collage Couture and Collage Workbook.

Here are our projects:

 



Jann's collage inspired by Collage Couture



My collage
A Tea Party!

We used canvas boards from Michaels, which are already primed, and put down acrylic paint. We used Mod Podge to attach photos, paper, and magazine clippings.  I also used Distress Inks and cut out a flower, butterfly, swirls and corners with the Cricut Art Philosophy cartridge.  This was sooo much fun!

Christmas Inspiration

Here are a few sites to check out for Christmas inspiration:

http://www.kwernerdesign.com/blog/ -Kristina has a daily Holiday Card Series where she posts a cute card along with a video tutorial.

http://ellenhutson.typepad.com/the_classroom_new/ -12 Tags of Christmas with a Feminie twist.

Onlinecardclasses.com - Holiday Gift Bundle class and several Holiday Card classes.

http://ablognamedhero.blogspot.ca/?m=1 -a Christmas-travaganza with a different project each day.

Let me know if you find any sites that make your heart go pitter-patter!

Here are a few Christmas cards I've done.

Holiday Card Workshop Day 5, Card 1

I'm kind of skipping around a bit, but the great thing about Online Card Classes is you can go back and watch the videos and look at the material as long as you want after you finish the class! So I decided to just do whichever cards called to me :)

For this card I cut a tag with the Cricut from the Art Philosophy Cartridge, which I love! I then stamped an image, embossed it, and brushed on a mixture of Perfect Pearls and water, which the embossed image resisted. I layered the tag over two other cuts and then attached them to my background.

I did my background differently than the class - I embossed the wood grain stamp and then rubbed on a red and green Distress Stain along with a Pewter Stain on one card and the Bronze Stain on the other. I then spritzed with water and dried the cardstock and then blended some Distress Inks till I was happy with the look.

I really liked the way the background turned out even though I wasn't sure how the wood grain would look!