Forever Blessed {Paper Issues Scraplift Sunday}

I played in another Scraplift Sunday challenge over at Paper Issues.

Here is the beautiful layout by Anna I lifted:

Here are some details. I used Jillibean Soup's Garden Harvest collection for this, plus a couple of things from my stash. I loved Anna's idea of using a little bag as one of the layers. This layout is a gift. I added a tag so that they can journal some thoughts.

The hearts were made with ink and a stencil I created with my Silhouette Cameo. The stitching around the edge is a stamp by 49 and Market.

There are lots of papers and elements from this Jillibean Soup collection in the store, not to mention lots of other awesome new collections. Use my code, Debbi (no e on the end) and get 20% off your entire order!

And there are still a few more days to play in the many challenges over at Paper Issues --you might even win a gift certificate to their store if you share it on the Facebook group.

For the Jar {Stuck?! Sketches June 1 Challenge}

It's June 1, which means a brand-new challenge is live at Stuck?! Sketches! Here's the layout I made:

Here's the awesome sketch Laura made for us:

And some details. Farzad and I go out to lunch after church every Sunday. For the past year and a half or so, we went on, what I call and "Alphabet Adventure," where we chose restaurants based on letters of the alphabet, which is pretty easy where I live, which is something of a restaurant mecca. (I made a page to document this some time ago. You can see that page here.)

We've been through the alphabet three times, so I thought it was time for a little change. Now we're doing what I call the "Coupon Caper," which is pretty self-explanatory. Anyway, we're putting our savings in a jar, so I knew I wanted to use a jar on my page. I chose to use a Dear Lizzy stamped jar in place of one of the photos on the sketch.

My layout started with some new Jillibean Soup die-cuts I had recently bought. I found lots of scraps of old patterned papers in my stash to match the colors, and I even rescued some very old Pink Paislee letter stickers in just the right yellow.

A few pearls and enamel dots for some added dimension and some flair badges by A Flair for Buttons.

The tabs are by Kaisercraft. Another flair badge from A Flair for Buttons. Believe it or not, but I spent the better part of a day fiddling around with the placement of all these things, but it all came together in the end! 

You'll have to go check out the Stuck?! Sketches blog to see what the rest of the team created, and you'll definitely want to play with us for a chance to win a gift certificate from our sponsors:

Real {Sketchabilities No. 70}

We have a fantastic new sketch at Sketchabilities for the first half of May:

Here's what I created. This photo was taken last summer when they had just broken ground for our new house. I'd been saving the Studio Calico pattern with the houses for this layout. The green paper is also by Studio Calico. The red polka dot paper is Jillibean Soup, and the gray paper is by Crate Paper.

Here are some details. The little chipboard house is by Maya Road. The little bit of pattern peeking out of the window is from the tear strip on one of the Studio Calico papers.

These are some old Prima flowers--the ones that came in a jar. I still have tons of those. The leaves are cut from an old Scenic Route paper. I need to find a stamp that looks like these leaves because my supply of that paper is slowly dwindling.

And here's a close-up of my journaling. The kraft journaling spots are by Maya Road.

Come see all the beautiful and varied takes on this sketch, and I hope you'll play with us. This was a fun sketch to work with!

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

Top of the World {CSI Case File No. 11}

We have the most cheerful, playful Case File this week at CSI: Color, Stories, Inspiration!

I love documenting fun little stories from my childhood, and this was the perfect Case File to do it. I used a sketch from Page Maps as my starting point:

Here's what I made. The clues I used: Evidence: butterflies, string, patterned paper with vintage images, and tearing. Testimony: a story from my childhood.

My hidden journaling (on the 7 Gypsies tag tucked behind the photos) tells about how when I was a kid, we'd go to the school playground after hours and I'd sit on the top of those monkey bars singing the old Carpenters song, "I'm on the top of the world looking down on creation..." at the top of my lungs.

For you young'ns who have no idea who the Carpenters are or what the song sounds like, here you go...

Here are some details. I used a whole bunch of different papers on this page. From the following image, the black polka dot is by Jillbean Soup, the green grid is by Echo Park, the blue paper is by Ki Memories, the yellow polkie is American Crafts, the music print is by October Afternoon, and the vintage girl and flowers is Sassafras Lass. I added Stickles to my flowers.

These butterflies were cut out of a Jillibean Soup paper. The red number paper is by Jenni Bowlin, and the clouds are cut out of a Bella Blvd. paper. The kraft label is by Maya Road. I added "Random Memory No." with Headline Rub-ons. Love those things--they're really tiny and perfect for labeling things like this. You can find them at AC Moore in the fine arts section.

I elevated several of the elements on my page with pop dots. My title letters are American Crafts Thickers, old Foofala (red), and Echo Park (typewriter key-syle letters). The flowery border with the 4's is from a Sassafras Lass paper. The border punches are by Martha Stewart and EK Success.

The little banners from the sketch just weren't working out for me on my borders, so I added them to the top of my page, along with a 7 Gypsies phrase sticker, which I snipped into a flag shape. That little flower-shaped brad is ancient, by Autumn Leaves MOD.

The design team and all of our guest designers did amazing things with this challenge--you must go check it out--it's such a fun Case File!

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

Pose - WIP October Kit

Last month, we went to a family reunion, and on the way out of my cousin's garden, my 92-year-old Gram stopped at a hibiscus tree and asked us to take a picture of her. Gram loves gardens and even more than flowers, she loves to pose for pictures! We have a huge batch of pictures of Gram over the years posing in all sorts of sassy poses. It makes me smile to see that she hasn't lost her desire to be in front of the camera!

She pulled that giant hibiscus flower down near her ear and smiled for the camera. I thought the picture was perfect to use with some of the pretty papers that came in the October Work in Progress kit, which featured some papers from Crate Paper's Farmhouse collection and Jillibean Soup's Sweet & Sour Soup collection.

Here are a few closeups. I cut those flowers from a Crate Paper print and added Stickles to give them some pizzazz and popped on some pearls for dimension.

The frame was the perimeter of a Jillibean Soup paper. I cut the center out. That green frame beneath the photo is a journaling card.

The title letters are from that paper I cut the above frame out of, and the "sweet clover honey" is cut from a sheet of similar labels on a Crate Paper patterned paper.

Thank you for stopping by my blog to read about my layout today!

Chit-Chat

I was trying to clean up my files and found a layout I made last year that I never posted here. I apparently made it for Creative Prompts for You, but I don't even remember what the prompt was now.

That's my sister reading some conversation cards at a family gathering. We sat on the deck and shared our ideas to thought-provoking and silly questions.

Most everything on the page came from the Joyland kit by Studio Calico. I added the word strips, which are those ancient K&Co. "Words to Go." Remember those? They came in a Chinese carry-out box. I have a gazillion of those things. I need to remember to use them more often--there seems to be a phrase for everything under the sun in that box.

Thanks for stopping by for a look today!

August Work in Progress

I can finally share the pages I made for Work in Progress kits. Here is the kit I got to play with (sorry--sold out. Gotta snag it early!):

Here is my first page I made. I love watching the sun rise whenever we go to the beach, and Farzad and I always get up early to see it. We took pictures one summer of us watching. The butterfly shadow is covering me up, but I'm in that picture I'm sitting in a chair watching it. I was trying to figure out a title for my page, and I decided "Rise" was the perfect title for it's double meaning.

I used Creative Scrappers Sketch 164 to make this page. Ever since I've been on the CS design team, I made it a secret goal to try to do all of their sketches. Might take me forever, but it's a fun goal. I love setting scrappy goals. Keeps my scrappy routine interesting!

And here are some details. The yellow paper in the background with the numbers is by Simple Stories. And the flowers and yellow and orange polka dot circles are from the opposite side of the same paper. That journaling spot is by Jillibean Soup. The BasicGrey fabric brad is from my stash.
 

I didn't originally have the gold dots on my title and around the circles, but when I looked upon my page with fresh eyes the next day, I realized I neded a little something-something on my page. I made the dots with Scribbles 3D paint, which you can pick up at Michael's for about a dollar. The colorful striped element is by Jillibean Soup.

 

The wave punched border is another "fresh eye" addition," along with the sticker and brads. It gave my page a visual triangle that I felt was missing. Plus I always love how word stickers can add to a story.

 

 
So that's my first page with this fun, summery kit. I'll share the others in the coming days. Thank you so much for stopping by my blog and reading about my page today!
 

CCG + HMITM = One Fun Page!

I've had an extremely busy couple of weeks between my scrappy life and my home life. We're buying a house and have been cleaning, cleaning, cleaning to get our house ready to list. So I last week I had to choose between doing a page for Color Combos Galore or doing a page for How Much Is Too Much. In the end, I decided I couldn't decide, so I combined the challenges. Here's the Inspiration Board I had to work with:

Our challenge at HMITM is called Clowning Around (It's International Clown Week), and we had to use:

• 8 buttons
• 1 flower
• 11 different patterned papers
• 1 red circle
• mist or paint

From this prompt, I immediately thought of making a page for my Book of Silly (yes, I have an album of silly family photos--actually several volumes). Debbie had provided a picture of a clown to use as inspiration, and as I was going through my photos, I came upon this picture of my nephew with his hair dyed bright red for school spirit week, and I knew it was the perfect photo for both of my challenges. Here's the page I came up with (for the life of me, I couldn't get a straight photo of this page--sorry!):

I used sketch 166 from Creative Scrappers as inspiration for my page. (Ever since I got on the CS design team, I set a goal to go back and do all of the sketches--which will take me a long time since there are so many!)

Here are a few details. I love Brian Andreas. I have all of his Storypeople books, and I use a lot of his stories for my Book of Silly. I thought this quote would be fun to use with this picture. I made the journaling label by using the RGB codes to get the perfect colors and then printed it out on photo paper.

That electron thingy with the pearl in the center is a BasicGrey rub-on, rubbed onto a transparency.

Eleven patterned papers are a LOT for an 8 x 8 page, so I decided to use bits and pieces cut from papers. The background woodgrain is Hambly. They gray is by American Crafts. The red polka dots and the eye charts are by Jillibean Soup. The periodic elements paper is Reminisce. Those green circles with the off-white bubbles in them are cut from a Crate Paper pattern, and the circle numbers are cut from a My Mind's Eye paper.

Here you can see more patterned papers I used. The red circle with the star is from an old Scenic Route Christmas paper. The leaves are cut from a Luxe Designs Paper. They wre bright lime green, so to tone them down, I added an olive colored chalk. They were still too bright, so I brushed gesso over them, and that gave me almost the perfect shade of green for the palette. I got that electron image from the Internet and printed it on photo paper. The part of the HMITM challenge that was trickiest for me was the flower. I didn't want a girly page, so I hunted through my stash to find something that would meet the flower requirement and found this little brad. I found a bunch of gray buttons in my stash to meet the 8 button requirement.

You'll have to go check out the awesome work the CCG and HMITM teams did with these challenges, and I hope you'll play along. Both challenges are immensely fun!

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

Round Robin Reading {Color Combos Galore + Pencil Lines

A couple of weeks ago, I shared a layout I made for the 200th Anniversary of Pencil Lines. Pencil Lines invited Color Combos Galore to partner up with them for the celebration, and the party didn't end with Sketch 200--we finished out the month of August with them. I had the opportunity to play with another sketch and color combo, and here's what I got to work with:

And here's the layout I made:

Here are a few close-ups. I love those Jillibean Soup birdhouses. I punched out the little doorways to let the background peek through. And how cool that one of the houses had "Dick and Jane" text on it!

I used lots of stamping with embossing powder. Love how that looks!

Come see what the Pencil Lines and Color Combos Galore teams did with these two pieces of inspiration! I'd love to see what you make with these, so please share a link if you play along!