Think Outside the Frame!

We've all seen them...those clear acrylic frames that usually display one or two photos. Normally I see them displayed with a single, lonely photo just waiting for some attention. So I decided to think outside the frame and create a layout within the acrylic frame!

I found this frame on sale for only .59 cents - I just couldn't pass that up! Even thought it's supposed to hold two 4"x6" photos, I chose my patterned paper and cut it out to an 8"x6". Then I used matting to frame in my photos (after inking all my edges, of course!).

Then, to add a little dimension I added my chipboard onto the outside of the frame and tied a few pieces of twine.

Now, I turned what would have normally been a boring photo into a creative layout for display! Perfect for my desk at work!

Now, what creative ways can you spiffy up your acrylic frames? Try something new and have some fun!

All products used from Cosmo Cricket

Patterned Papers: Lil' Man in Michevious Max and Jumping Jack

Chipboard: Lil' Man Ready-Set-Chipboard

Letter Stickers: Tiny Type in Red

For My Girl

It feels like I haven't done a digital layout in forever. I've been so busy making cards that I've neglected my Photoshop! Well, it's definitely long overdo that I spent some quality time fiddling around with my mouse and keyboard.

I created this layout of my daughter using the Tiny Princess digital kit from Sugarplum Paperie over at the Digichick. I just love the soft pastels in this kit - it's a little shabby chic and very girly! Although creating with such pale colors can be a challenge - that's why I opted to use sepia tones for my photo. I think it was a good choice, don't you?

Now, I just need a few more digital layouts and then I can send off for another photobook!

Cosmo Cricket Togetherness Card & Tutorial: Tattered Edges

Have you seen the new Togetherness line from Cosmo Cricket? It's now on my list as a favorite! The colors are cheerful, the chipboard elements are fun, and the creative ideas that are running through my head are endless! I can't wait to make more with these papers. 

So I thought I'd show you how I make the tattered edges around some of my cards. I'm sure there are many, many different ways of doing this, but this is how I do it...

I start with my patterned papers and use chalk ink around the edges. I usually prefer a basic brown or chestnut color - it seems to look good and aged around the edges. 

Then, I take a small amount of water and set aside to work with. I dip my fingers in the water and run my fingers along the edges of the paper. But just very lightly! You don't want to add too much or it will soak right through!

While the edges are nice and wet, I used my fingernail to push the edges inward. Then I take my finger and randomly press down along the freshly curled-up edge. After a few minutes, the paper hardens and the edges stay curled. It ends up looking tattered and torn - I love this look!

Once the papers are dry, you can adhere your other patterned papers. I chose to add a stamped sentiment from the Spiral Bouquet set from Papertrey Ink. 

Then I prepared my heat embossing tools to create the stem for the flowers. I used brown ink for my stamp and a metallic copper embossing powder and placed it onto cardstock. After using the heat embossing tool, I cut out my stem and added to my card with foam tape for dimension. Then I used those cute little daisies from K&Company.

Here is the close up...I love how it turned out!

Patterned Paper: Pinwheels from Togetherness line by Cosmo Cricket

Daisies: Wild Saffron Daisies from K&Company

Sentiment: Spiral Bouquet from Papertrey Ink

Cosmo Cricket Card & Tutorial: Using Punches to Make a Tree

Happy Saturday! Today, I wanted to show you how to make your own tree using a heart-shaped punch. First, I started out by hand-drawing the tree trunk onto patterned paper (don't worry for any non-artists out there - it's a pretty basic shape). Then I cut out the trunk and taped it to thick chipboard and cut it out once more (the chipboard is optional but I wanted the tree trunk to have some dimension on the card). 

Now, choose a green paper or several papers in different shades of green and punch out as many heart-shaped punches as you like. I ended up punching out about 22 hearts, but didn't end up using that much for my tree. 

To add texture to the heart-shaped leaves, I used my white gel pen and traced around the edges of the heart and added veins to about half of my leaves. Then I used a brown chalk stamp to ink up the edges of a few leaves for some shadow and more dimension. 

Then, to start the branches of the tree I attached a few leaves directly onto the background paper to get the shape and size of the tree's leaves (this will be my outer layer). Then, I used foam tape for the rest of the leaves for dimension and continued adding layers of leaves starting from the outside and working my way in. 

And that's it! This was so simple, I can't wait to try this technique again! 

Patterned Papers: Pixielicious; tree trunk is Mr. Campy; both from Cosmo Cricket

Other: Puffy Clouds; Orange Stickles; Khaki Glimmer Mist; Rub-On Sentiment; Uni-ball Gel Pen in White

Mobile Blogging

So I've owned the same Blackberry phone for well over two years. I finally decided that I deserved an upgrade. So I got another Blackberry because I never had any problems with my old one - not once!
Anyway, all morning I've been setting up my new phone. And I thought I'd try my fate at posting to my blog from my phone.

Is it working? Are you reading this? Ok good. So now let's try to send a photo from my phone...

Did it work? Can you see it? This is my dog...bored that I'm ignoring her while playing on my new phone.
[Insert sad face here.]

Sent from Mobile Device

Another Doily Card (And My Own Scraplift)

Happy Thursday! For me, Thursday is the last day of the work week - just one more day until another lovely 3-day weekend! Aaah! But enough about that. On to the fun stuff...

Now I mentioned in my last post that doilies are popping up everywhere lately. So of course I wanted to challenge myself to make another doily card. Last time, I created the doily using stamps - to mix it up, I decided to use a digital scrapbook kit to create a hybrid doily card.

For this card I chose patterned paper, mini flowers, and a vintage looking doily from Danielle Engebretson. This is what I came up with...

I love that Danielle's kit included stitching! I was able to resize the stitching to fit the dimension of my card in Photoshop and print directly onto the cardstock. I couldn't ask for an easier project!

Then, I simply added my satin ribbon, layered up those pretty Prima flowers and added some small little jewels onto the flowers from the kit. Oooh! Aaaah!

When I was done, I looked back at my card. All proud of myself. Then thought, "Hey, wait a minute! This card looks almost exactly like the card I made the other day! I just scraplifted myself!!!"

So either I ran out of ideas and didn't know it. Or my first doily card was just worth repeating again. Too funny!


Patterned Paper: Golden Harvest by Danielle Engebretson (available at the Digichick)
Fabric Flowers: Prima Marketing
Sentiment: Spiral Bouquet from Papertrey Ink

Stamping a Doily

These days, it appears that doilies are popping up everywhere in the scrapbook world. I see them on cards, layouts and even mini albums shaped like doilies! Recently, I found a great tutorial from Betsy Veldman on how to make your own doilies from stamps. And because I happened to have the same stamps in my stash, I recreated her doilies and scraplifted her card. Thanks for the inspiration and a new way to use my stamps, Betsy! 

Now, if I could just figure out a way to make these waterproof, they would be great little drink coasters! If anyone can figure that out, please let me know!

And the close up. Thanks for stopping by!

Doily Stamps: Borders & Corners Circle; Mini Scrapbook Series: Tabs; Giga Guide Lines from Papertrey Ink

Sentiment Stamps: Mega Mixed Messages; Spiral Bouquet from Papertrey Ink

Background Stamps: Background Basics: Tin Types from Papertry Ink

Ink: Raspberry Fizz; Ripe Avocado; and Fresh Snow from Papertrey Ink

Papers: Quite Contrary from My Mind's Eye

Ribbon & Ric Rak: American Crafts

Back to School

Can you believe summer is almost over? In just two days, the kids will be back in school. Back to the crazy schedule, back to making school lunches, doing homework, and early bedtime. I'm gonna miss these summer days. Sigh!

Anyway, to turn my frown upside down, I decided to embrace back to school. To get me in the mood, I made my daughter a card to wish her the best of luck in her new adventures as a 7th grader (sheesh, where has the time gone?).

After applying all my papers and embellies, I added some ric rak ribbon around the edges. I love this ribbon glue - it dries quickly and sticks perfectly!

For my last little detail, I used this cute little A+ stamp from Papertrey Ink onto cardstock and cut it out to apply onto my card. 

And now for the close up. Thanks for looking!

Patterned Paper: Monday paper from the Girl Friday line by Cosmo Cricket

Other Paper: white grid paper

Glimmer Mist: Wild Currant from Tattered Angels

Stamps: It's Official from Papertrey Ink

Ink: Raspberry Fizz and Fresh Snow from Papertrey Ink

School Elements: Hittin' the Books Paper Stack from DCWV

Ric Rak Ribbon: Velvet Pink from American Crafts

You're A Hoot!

I've been having so much fun making these hybrid cards with kits from the Digichick. They are so simple to create because you can rearrange your layout on the computer before accidentally cutting your paper, then realizing it doesn't look right. Easy does it for me!

For this card, I created my layout in Photoshop, printed it out and applied it to cardstock, adding photo corners around each corner. That cute little owl came from the Color Me Happy digital kit - I simply outlined with a glitter stick and attached some sweet little flowers. A perfect card for your best friend or someone who just makes you smile!

Digital Kit: Color Me Happy from Jennifer Labre

Glitter: Orange Peel from Stickles

Flowers: Tiffany Teal Iced by Prima Marketing

Eye Spy Me on Cosmo Cricket!

Well, just knock me over with a feather this morning! You may know that Cosmo Cricket is one of my favorite go-to designers for most of my scrapbook creations. Well, this morning I was catching up on their blog and read today's post Eye Spy. It was a post about some interesting projects Cosmo's Design Team found on the internet. So I scrolled down the list and saw a card and thought, "Hey, that card looks familiar!"

It was mine! My card was featured on the Cosmo Cricket blog! I could get used to waking up with this kind of news.

Another Hybrid Card

Just a quick post tonight to show you my second hybrid card using those pretty papers from Sugarplum Paperie over at the Digichick. Luckily, I found an awesome stash of trim and lace during one of my thrift store trips. I splurged and spent only .95 cents! I know...big spender! And now I have tons and tons of fun trims to play with!

I love that this flower started out as just a flat digital image. I simply added a few layers of different sizes, inked the edges to give it texture, and used foam tape for dimension. 

Digital Papers: Tiny Princess kit from Sugarplum Paperie

Stamp: Spiral Bouquet from Papertrey Ink

Traditional Scrapbook Meets Digital

This card may look like it was created using traditional scrapbook items, but it was actually my first digital card turned hybrid! I can't believe how easy it is to turn a digital scrapbook kit into a traditional design using a little of both elements. 

I created this card using the Tiny Princess digital kit over at Digichick. Using Photoshop, I created a blank template measuring 5"x5" and used the papers from the kit to design my layout. I created my own font for the title and printed out each paper as a separate layer to apply to my cardstock paper.

Now here is where the traditional elements come in to play - I punched out the circle and stamped a green outline around the edge, then stamped the little bunny. Then I used my Copic Markers to color her. And for the final detail, I added pink jewels.

I had so much fun making this. If you haven't tried hybrid scrapbooking, you must! It's surprisingly simple and there are no mess ups because you design it before you print it! Easy does it!

Now, I'm off to try another digicard...

Digitial Papers: Tiny Princess from Sugarplum Paperie at the Digichick

Bunny Stamp: colored with Copic Markers

Birthday Card & Gift Box

So yesterday was my mom's birthday. I wanted to make her a card, but thought she would rather have a "non-birthday" related card. She loves the color green and the water, so I knew the papers from Cosmo Cricket's Mr. Campy would be perfect. 

I recycled the clear gift box from the stamps that I got in the mail the other day and added a ribbon and handmade flower. I thought it made a better presentation than an envelope and was a little more unique.

I drew the boat and placed it onto chipboard adding a very light coat of glimmer mist, used one of their little rub-on images and placed him inside the boat, curled up the edges of the card and did some hand-journaling on the inside. And my mom loved it - perfect!

Procrastination

So today I was supposed to be doing all the things on my "to-do" list. But then, I heard a loud truck outside my house, followed by a large "thump" at my doorstep. Then, the dog started to bark. I knew it must be something important - so I stopped what I was doing and opened the front door. And who was at my door? 

Procrastination! It came knocking loudly with a box full of goodies for me! 

I quickly put down everything to open my box only to find a lovely assortment of stamps, inks, and papers that I ordered from Papertrey Ink! Whoo-wee! I couldn't wait to tear opened that tissue paper to get a closer look. 

Just look at all that procrastination just waiting to be used. And because I just couldn't disappoint my new items, I decided to stop everything I was doing to break them all in! After all, when procrastination comes knocking, the polite thing to do is open the door!

10 Minute Challenge

So you have "no time to be crafty", you say?


I say, "do you have just 10 minutes?"


Yesterday, we hit the lake and spent the day on our wave runners. The weather was perfect, the water was perfect, I had plenty of sunscreen (again, perfect). Nothing could be better - until this moring. Wow! I am so sore! I had been having so much fun I didn't realize how much work it really was. Is this a sign I'm getting older? Nah!


Anyway, last night I was determined to create a card, but I had no energy. So I challenged myself to create a card in less than 10 minutes. And this is what I came up with...(notice the sentiment? I thought it was ironic because I embraced happiness on the lake but my body paid for it later. Ha!)

So now I feel super accomplished. I took on the lake, flew up and down those wakes at high speed, avoided a sunburn, made a card, and then, zzz zzzz zzz! 


So my point is this...being crafty doesn't always have to be a time consuming task. Just set the timer and push your creativity. You'll be surprised - I was!

Patterned Paper: Everyday Blessings from Papertrey Ink
Sentiment Stamp: Mega Mixed Messages from Papertrey Ink
Ink: Moss Green and Brown from Clear Snap
Flower & Jewels: from Me & My Big Ideas