Embrace Your Inner Geek!

I'm way late posting this, but there's still time to play in our current challenge at How Much Is Too Much, which is called Inner Geek (the challenge runs until June 5).  Amanda's clever challenge, to celebrate National Geek Pride Day, asks us to show in a layout something that's a little geeky about you (or a loved one)! We used prime numbers on our layout:

• 2 photos
• 3 word title
• 5 different patterned papers
• 7 stickers
• 11 metal items
• 13 buttons

I proudly proclaim that I am a geek! I decided to document my passion for words, and I immediately thought of the Noel Mignon Office Party kit. Here's the page I made. The picture shows me playing Bananagrams (I almost always win!):

I used Creative Scrappers Sketch #113 as inspiration for my page design:

Here are a few close-ups. The patterned papers are by My Mind's Eye. I thought the letter paper was perfect for my story, as were the Core'dinations and BasicGrey text prints. For some of my metal, I used the Tim Holtz clip pin to hold part of my title and staples to adhere the main part of my title. The 13 buttons were tricky for me, and I layered a couple for the O on my title.

I added some brads to the buttons to finish out my 11 metal items: The EK Success notebook border punch is one of my favorites, and I always love it when the topic of my layout fits in with it. I outlined everything in pen to make it stand out, including the punched edge. The Dymo-tape-looking stickers are really old K&Co. Life's Journey.

I love BasicGrey's Basics line. The labels on my page and this tab is from that collection. I used Headline rub-ons (found in the fine arts section at AC Moore) on the little tab--small and perfect for little spots.

I cut out these flourishy damask patterns from a My Mind's Eye paper to give my page some more color. These itty-bitty buttons from Michael's that I've had in my stash FOREVER (and I mean forever--from when I first started scrapping a decade ago) rescued me when I was trying to figure out how to get 13 buttons on my page.

So what are you waiting for? Join us and embrace YOUR inner geek. Go see what the rest of the geeky team made and play along--you might find yourself in our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and be invited to be a future guest designer!

Thank you so much for visiting my blog and reading about my page!

Work in Progress - A Summery Page

Holy cow! May is getting away from me, and I haven't shared all my May Work in Progress pages. Here's one of my favorites I made with this kit. When I saw that paper with the wavy pattern, I knew I wanted to use it for this photo of my sweet little nephew, taken years ago. I had printed it out long ago and never scrapped it.  Everything on this pge, except for the brads, was made with the kit, which features Pink Paislee/Collage Press's Hometown Summer collection.

Here are a few close-ups. I cut some of the waves from the paper, inked the edges, outlined them with blak pen for definition and set one on pop dots. Gosh, it's hard to draw straight lines on chipboard letters. Good thing I never became a surgeon!

The "Summer" label came from the tear strip on one of the patterned papers.

How cute is this little chipboard pop? The "Summer Fun" is a little bit trimmed from a tear strip off of one of the patterned papers. I added those mini brads at the last minute.

Love the "Summer Fun" print, which is comprised of a whole sheet of these little letter and character cards, and my favorite paper in this collection is the Thermometer paper--again, a whole sheet of these images, so you can use it again and again.

Thank you for stopping by and reading about my page!

A Soft and Dreamy Palette with a Touch of Drama

Challenge 193 went live at Color Combos Galore last night. I got to make the inspiration board again. I was in love with this picture, and it made for a fun Designer's Challenge--to tell a story. Sometimes we get all caught up in the "eye candy" when we're making layouts, so I thought it would be fun to challenge the design team and CCG players to tell a story on their page. Here's the Inspiration Board:

And here's the page I made. I put the beginning of my journaling on the front and told the rest of the story on the back. As I was digging through my stash to find the right pink, I came across BasicGrey's Sugared collection, and the green was in there too! I tend to hoard my BasicGrey papers, so I was pleased to use some this week.

I used this sketch from Once Upon a Sketch, a challenge blog run by one of my design teammates, Nadia Cannizzo, as inspiration for my page design:

Journaling on the back reads: I fell in love with the ring when I saw it at the antique market in Adamstown, Pennsylvania. We were saving money to buy a new refrigerator, but Farzad said I should get the ring because I loved it so much. (Who needs a refrigerator, anyway?) The ring was a gold hand holding a ruby. The ruby was a very light red, almost pink, and it had a big flaw in the bottom, but I didn't care. This ring was so unique and beautiful to me. I was completely enchanted.

I had the ring for a couple of years and wore it daily, until one day I discovered the ruby had fallen out. We searched and searched for that little gem, but it had disappeared. And so my gold ring sat on my dresser with its empty prongs mocking me. One night, at least a month after the ruby had disappeared, Farzad woke up out of a dead sleep, went downstairs, and found it buried in the carpet. So uncanny and so, so wonderful that he has this strange ability to find things. I truly think he's psychic. We had the stone put back into the ring, and there it has stayed ever since.

Here are a few detail photos... The cool dimensional butterflies are by Pink Paislee. My layout didn't originally have those butterflies. I have recently learned that it helps to let a layout sit overnight and then look at it the next day with fresh eyes. My layout looked fine the day before, but when I picked it up the next day to photograph it, I realized that it was just too plain, and I searched for something to add some interest.

I also added the word stickers the next day. That puffy "treasure" sticker is by K&Co. I love that border punch--it's by EK Success.

I punched some of the designs from one of the BasicGrey papers and adhered them with pop dots.

The jouraling spot is from The Graphics Fairy. The black puffy letters are actually sparkly--doesn't show up that way in the picture. They're American Crafts Thickers, and I got them in a "value pack" at Home Goods--there were four packs of Thickers for like five bucks.

I used pink rhinestones on the centers of the circles, and at the last minute, I added one to the ring in the photo.

The design team did a beautiful job, as always, so you should pop over and see what they made with this challenge! And I do hope you'll play along. So fun to tell stories...

Thank you so much for visiting my blog and reading about my page!

CCG + CP4U = One Lovely Challenge!

I'm a weekend scrapper, and last weekend was especially busy, so I had to combine my challenges for Color Combos Galore and Creative Prompts for You. Our challenge at CP4U this week was an all-play, with several of us contributing parts to the challenge:

Nicole - use a doily
Me - include a banner
Solange - use lace
Kaori - use rub-ons

I had the pleasure of making the Inspiration Board for CCG this week. Everyone on the team says they hate purple, but we haven't done a purple in the while, so I jumped at the chance of including it in the palette!

And here is what I created by combining these two fun challenges. While searching for papers in the proper colors, I found lots of old stuff, plus a few newer things to use. The papers I used are My Mind's Eye (the polka dot and the stripe), Melissa Frances (the lavendar strip), Webster's Pages (the lanterns), SEI (the leaves), American Crafts (the journaling spot-looking things), and I think that painty-looking lavendar paper in the circle is Kangaroo and Joey (that shows you how old my stash runs!).

My hidden journaling reads: My wisteria has taken over the tree shading our deck, turning our back yard into a veritable jungle. But I adore the cascading lavender blooms draping the branches and the lovely fragrance that greets me when I open the door, and my wisteria always lets me know that spring has finally arrived.

  Here are a few detail shots. As I was searching for the right colors, I came across a Webster's Pages paper that had these teal lanterns, and I thought I could make them into a sort of banner. I added lilac brads to the top and stuck some pearls on them and then added some baker's twine meandering across the grouping to make them more like a banner.

You can see I used two doilies on this page, the larger one forming the circle on my page, and this smaller Martha Stewart doily under the flower. The purple flower is just a silk flower I got at Michael's and attached it with a pretty fabric K&Co brad which was just the right shade of green for the color combo I was working with. I was delighted to discover the SEI Poppy paper that had these teal leaves. At the last minute, I added those Kaiser Craft pearls beneath the word sticker to go with the pearls I had added to the lantern banner.

I knew I wanted to include some butterflies, but of course I didn't have any purple or teal butterflies, so I searched for a butterfly on the internet and then changed the colors of them, and printed them on photo paper. The transparency thingy is an old My Mind's Eye accent that's been in my stash for years. My letters are also really old Wordsworth rub-ons. I outlined them with a fine-line pen to make them stand out more.

Here you can see that lavendar paper I used, and I found some purple lace in my stash! What a lucky find!

The CP4U and CCG design teams did fabulous work with these challenges, so pop over and check them out, and as always I hope you'll play along! There are fun prizes to be won, but more importantly, the challenges themselves are great fun!

Thank you so much for visiting my blog today and reading about my page.

Another Work In Progress Page

I had spring break a few weeks ago and I thought I was going to have lots of scrappy time to work on my pages for Work in Progress, but Farzad had other ideas. He's got this big idea to buy a new house. Which means getting our current home ready to put on the market. Which means big-time de-cluttering since we've been in our house for twenty years. So I wound up having less time than I'd hoped for. I'm such a slow scrapper, and stress does nothing for the mojo, so I thought I'd turn to a sketch to make this page. I used a sketch and journaling prompt from my CCG teammate Nadia Cannizzo's challenge blog, Once Upon a Sketch. The journalling criteria for this challenge was to write the reason you chose to scrap this photo, and here's the sketch:

Here's the layout I created. My hidden journaling talks about how I was feeling wistful looking at this picture of my nephew and me because they were planning to move away from the country, and I'd miss the toads hunting tradition, but that I was excited because we were planning to move to the same neighborhood, so we'd have opportunities to make lots of new memories. [Alas, my sister has decided to stay put, so this layout is a moot point, lol.]

 
This layout was made completely with the WIP May kit, with the exception of the buttons and the "Confidential" rub-on. The papers and other elements are new Pink Paislee/Collage Press Hometown Sumer and BasicGrey Life of the Party (the woodgrain paper). LOVE, LOVE, LOVE the woodgrain paper!
 

And here are a few closeups. Love the three-dimensional chipboard accents that came in the kit. I added one fo the center of the O. Those letters are also Pink Paislee/Collage Press. The letters weren't sticking down very well, so I decided to add stitching to keep them in place.

The little house accent was cut from a patterned paper. The tape measure paper is by BasicGrey and came on a sheet that had rows and rows of them. The "Hometown Summer" is from a tear strip on one of the papers. I always scrutinize those tear strips because they often have phrases I can use on my layouts.

 I thought it would be fun to add a sticker to the die-cut sun.

The next picture shows two of my favorite parts of the kit. I love that number paper, and the fun E card is actually cut from a patterned paper that had a whole sheet of letters with different words, alternated with fun images of kids engaged in summery activities. There's another one of those fun layered chipboard pieces. I like that they're kind of glossy.

Thank you for stopping by my blog and reading about my page!

A Sunny, Happy Spring Palette at CCG

Challenge 191 is live at Color Combos Galore. And we have a sunny, happy palette this week.

Our Designer's Challenge was challenging to me, and I almost didn't make a page this week. I'm not a mother, so I decided I'd go with the "gifts given." I probably should've called Mom to ask her what was the best gift I ever gave her, but instead, I just went with what I thought were the best gifts I ever gave her. Here's my page. I used Noel Mignon's Sonoma County kit, along with a few odds and ends from my stash. The papers are from Crate Paper (Brooke) and Pink Paislee (Queen Bee). I used Pencil Lines Sketch 236 to inspire the design of my page. 

And here are a few closeups. The flower is by Prima, as are the gold swirly flourishes. I added some gold pearls to the cut-out flowers. That printed cork circle is by Pink Paislee.

I cut a strip from one of the Queen Bee Papers to use as a border and added some yellow brads. These brads are by Lasting Impressions, and I just love their matte finish. The embossed paper under the photos is the same patterned paper that's in the background, and I ran it through my Cuttlebug with a Tim Holtz embossing folder.

To make the scalloped edge, I used a Martha Stewart border punch to cut a couple of borders with some scraps leftover from the background cardstock I used as my base. I then cut slits where each scallop curves down and then just curved the strip and adhered it to my circle and stitched it on. That doodly border is part of a Queen Bee borderline sticker. I originally had the tiny letter stickers flat on the page and then decided they needed to be popped up.

The jeweled center of the flower is from a BasicGrey "Bling It" flower, and I cut off the stem and leaves and just used the flower part. The little journaling spot is also by BasicGrey, as is that green decorative brad.

Our reveal is especially beautiful this week, so you should hop over to CCG and check it out! And I hope to see your work in our gallery--you might be spotted as a Gallery Fave or even win a prize from this month's sponsor, Scrappy Chics!

Thank you for stopping by today and reading about my page. Happy Mother's Day if you're a mom!

WIP + HMITM = One Wild and Crazy Layout

I used my May Work in Progress kit to make my page for the current How Much Is Too Much challenge, which is called "Behind the 8 Ball," and we had to use:

8 patterned papers
8 rubons
8 brads
8 stickers
8 word title

Here's the page I made. That's my mom. This one's going into my Book of Silly. The WIP May kit featured the new Hometown Summer collection by Pink Paislee/Collage Press, along with some BasicGrey Life of the Party, so I thought it was perfect for this whimsical picture of Mom.

Here are some closeups. Those little circle people were on cards that were on the same paper as the letters. I used a circle punch, mounted them on circle-punched black cardstock and then added watch crystals on top. I've had those darn watch crystals FOREVER--two boxes of them, from when they were all the rage. I've been trying to use up some of my old stash. The cloud is a die-cut that came in the kit, and I ran it through a Cuttlebug embossing folder. The little rub-ons are really old, too--Imagination Project. I tied a little baker's twine around a couple of the letters for fun. I love the yellow woodgrain paper (BasicGrey Life of the Party). Note to self: Buy some more sheets of this!

My favorite paper in the Hometown Summer collection is the Thermometer paper--a whole sheet of these images! The triangle paper is from a zig-zag BasicGrey print that I cut out. I had a hard time figuring out what stickers to use for the 8 stickers because my pae was getting busy, and I found these round colorful stickers by Colorbok in my stash.

The eight-word title stumped me. I wanted to use this title, but it was actually nine words and said "Humor is staying in touch with your inner clown," so I just took out the word is and used a colon, and voila! I now had eight words. The rub-on letters are by Headline. Love those things! They go on like butter. I found them at AC Moore in the fine arts section, and they come in different styles and sizes. The letter stickers are by Webster's Pages. I love those also because they're nice and small and perfect for my 8 x 8 pages.

You should go take a peek at the fun pages the rest of the design team made with this HMITM challenge and all the awesome layouts in the WIP gallery this month! I hope you'll play with us at HMITM. Our challenges are really fun, and you might just wind up in our How Awesome Is Too Awesome Hall of Fame and be asked to join us as a future guest designer.

Thanks so much for visiting my blog and reading about my page!