Fall in Penfield

I decided to play along with this sketch over at PageMaps, and pulled out some old photos of Ellie and my older sister.

These are from when I took Ellie back up to Rochester for a friend's wedding in 2008.  It was October, and I have to say that I love Fall in the north so much more than I do down here.  It's just crisper, cooler, and everything seems to peak at the right time and all together.  Down here (in Virginia) it never quite seems like real fall.  On the other hand, springs in Virginia trump spring/more snow in New York every year.  Somewhere in Pennsylvania is probably the dividing line where you get the best of both worlds....but then you would live in Pennsylvania!  KIDDING!!!  (kind of)

ANYWAY, greens, and especially this shad of green are not my usual colors, but when I pulled out the photos I remembered this beautiful lime green print from Basic Grey's Konnichiwa line.  Perfect don't you think?

I modified the sketch a bit, made it a little more CAS.  I'm not a huge flower fan, but remembered that I had some of these leaves from Petaloo, and they add just the right sparkle/texture to the layout.  Very little journaling on this one.  Sometimes you just don't need to use that many words.

Hope that your weekend is going well.  We've got a birthday party today (and every Saturday for the next month it seems), and then my folks are going to have the kids tomorrow night so we can have a date and some down time.  Hope you are enjoying the long weekend!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  Basic Grey - Konnichiwa colletion; CTMH - White Daisy and Black cardstock
Other: Petaloo - Flora Doodles Fancy Foil Leaves/Butteflies; Elle's Studio - Bright Pennants and Spooky Tales Thankful Pennants; American Crafts - Black Amy Tangerine Sketchbook Journal Foam Thickers, and Exclusive Charcoal Alphas from Studio Calico Central High Scrapbooking Kit; Therm-o-web - Zots Dimensional Adhesive; Tombow - Mono Adhesive.

More National Scrapbooking Day/Week

I really think we need to have National Scrapbooking Day once a month, or at least once a quarter.  What a great way to get me motivated to get some serious scrapping done!

The projects I'm sharing today I've been working on/conceptualizing all week.  They are primarily for the Basic Grey challenges that closed yesterday (no worries, I was trying to get to bed so I just linked my flickr photos to the challenges), but there are so many great challenges going on out there, that I have bundled some others in too.

The other thing that I love about NSD is that it's a great way to do some stash busting, I broke out some really old Basic Grey for the layouts.  I'm going to give you some of the basic supplies I used in the descriptions, but in the interest of time won't provide the detailed list.  If you have specific questions, just shoot me an email.

This first layout is for Kelly Noel's grid challenge.  I'm also going to link it up at Shimelle's for the Scrap with Squares challenge.  I lightly drew the grid with a pencil and then stitched over the lines.  The papers are from the Basics, Oxford, and Max and Whisker lines.

The photos are from this past Christmas.  My nephew Collin thinks Ellie is the best thing ever, and she was just cracking him up at lunch.

The next layout is also from Christmas, a cute shot of Carina and my sisters.  I'm using this week's Elle's Studio sketch, and this is for Shannon Tidwell's Patterned Paper Circles Challenge, Els Brige's Leave White Space at the Bottom of the Page Challenge, and Waleska Neris' Fussy Cutting Patterned Paper Challenge.  This one is also going to be linked up at Studio Calico for the Five Different Patterned Papers challenge as well as Shimelle's Fussy Cutting Challenge.

The papers are BG Basics, Jovial, Oxford, and the green which is kind of a watercolor painted type pattern didn't even have a collection name to it.  I used my Creative Memories Custom Cutting System to create all the circles.

Finally, a card for Joy Taylor's card challenge.  I'm also going to link it up at Studio Calico for the Stamped Patterned Paper challenge.  This was the perfect final challenge since I needed a Mother's Day card for my MIL. 

The flowers are from CTMH's Card Word Puzzle set, and they are stamped on one of the Paper Cottage 6x6 prints. The sentiment is also CTMH, Say it in Style, the twine is Trendy Twine, and the sequins are from Neat & Tangled. I also accented the flowers with some Liquid Pearls.

 

I've got more projects underway....still a couple more days until all the challenges close.  Hope you are having a great weekend!  We went and got my early Mother's Day present today....new hockey skates (the wheeled kind) and shin pads.  Probably not what you were picturing, but I am pretty excited about it!  

Finger Painting - Basic Grey Sketch

 

 

Thought I would try out this week's Basic Grey sketch since it's a two pager, and I have a lot of photos to scrap.

These are from September, Carina was trying out one of her birthday party gifts.  Carina is not particularly neat or precise when it comes to crafting, so it was funny to see her trying these paints out.  She was being so careful....eventually she warmed up to them, and made a big old mess, which of course I didn't manage to photograph.

I stayed pretty true to the sketch here, although I eliminated some of the 'fussy' elements.  I didn't have a ton of time to spend on this layout, and when that's the case I like to kind of strip the sketch down to the bare bones. 

I'm using Basic Grey's Max and Whisker's collection, using mostly the 'b' sides of the paper.  They have this great painted look which I thought was perfect for the event being scrapped, and I really loved that bright bold orange.  The sticker embellishments are from BG's Konnichiwa collection.

I didn't want the layout to be too plain, but like I said, I was pressed for time, so I added just a few details that are easy to do and don't take long:

1) Used a sponge tool to add some Cocoa ink to the corners/right and left sides of the layout.  Then I used a brush and water to spread the ink out a little.  It softened the white base to make it a little less stark, plus it kind of mimics the brush strokes in the patterned paper.

2) I added a bit of stitching, nothing complicated, just a little bit, which ended up being a lot more subtle than I planned because when I started stitching I realized I had gray rather than white thread in the machine, and I was too lazy to fix it. 

3) I used one of my handcarved stamps for the journaling spot in the right hand corner.



That's all for today.  Hope your weekend is going well!

Supplies Used
Paper/Cardstock:  Basic Grey - Max and Whiskers collection; CTMH - White Daisy cardstock
Stamps:  Handcarved frame stamp
Ink:  CTMH - Cocoa
Other:  Basic Grey - Max and Whiskers collection alphas, Konnichiwa sticker sheet; CTMH - Texture tools, dimensional foam tape; Tombow - Mono Adhesive; Sewing Machine

Best Day Ever

A card for Basic Grey's sketch challenge today.

I really love the Paper Cottage collection, and I think most of it is kind of light and airy, but it can also be a little more modern.

I stayed pretty true to the sketch.



The stamp is from the It's Your Day stamp set (CTMH's Aug 15-Sept 30 special).

That gold trim is from Hydrangea Hippo, and the red strip is some Target washi tape.



I wanted to add a little more texture to the card, so I actually cut out some of those little circles and adhered them with small Dodz adhesives so that sit up just a little bit.



Hope you are enjoying your weekend!

Supplies Used

Paper/Cardstock: Basic Grey - Paper Cottage 6x6 pad; CTMH - White Daisy Cardstock
Stamps: CTMH - It's Your Day
Ink: Black
Other: Hydrangea Hippo - Gold Trim; Target Washi Tape; Tombo Mono Adhesive; 3L Small Dodz Adhesive; Creative Memories - Custom Cutting System

In Pursuit of Eggs - Embellishing and toning down patterned paper

**For the Shaping Up Blog Hop/Giveaways please scroll down



I finally printed out our Easter photos and am starting to scrapbook them.

For this layout I chose this beautiful sheet of paper from Basic Grey's Konnichiwa collection. It's a busier pattern than I am used to using, but it just seemed so perfect. In order to tone it town a little so that it wasn't competing so much with the photos, I incorporated some doilies.

I'm using two sizes here, the large ones are more of the ones that I got from that conference I attended back in April (they were under the candies that were on all the tables). The smaller ones are from Curtsey Boutique. I ended up laying a smaller one on top of each of the larger ones. It adds some extra texture and also further softens the color.



I was almost ready to just leave the layout as is, but I thought it needed a little something. I didn't want to overload it with embellishments, so I ended up adding interest by randomly adding Liquid Glass to some of the little red berries. Creates some shine as well as texture.



For the little embellishment cluster, I pulled a couple crocheted flowers from my stash, layered some of the collection stickers on top, and added a dot of Liquid glass in the center as another accent.



Can you believe that there is NO cardstock on this layout! This is a first!

I'm going to be linking this up with the following:
1) May Flaum Camp Scrap - Doilies
2) Basic Grey July Flickr Challenge
3) CK Summer Camp Altered Sticker Challenge

Supplies Used
Paper: Basic Grey - Konnichiwa
Other: Basic Grey - Konnichiwa letter stickers; CTMH - Liquid Glass, Crocheted Flowers, Bonding Memories Adhesive; Tombow Mono Adhesive; Curtsey Boutique - Round Paper Doilies; Doilies from stash; CM - Photo Splits, Black pen

Peek A Boo layout

This layout is for Polka Dot Whimsy's online crop. I had hoped to complete a bunch of projects for the crop, but I've been pretty busy with some other obligations/commitments, and I only managed to eke out this one layout for the stitching challenge. I'm also entering it into Basic Grey's Weekly challenge, to make a multi-photo layout.

These photos are from almost three years ago. I had taken Ellie up to my parents for a visit as I had a wedding to attend up there. It's fun to get to go back and scrap some of the events/moments I didn't get around to previously, and it's doubly fun right now as this is close to the age that Carina is, and they really do look a lot alike.

The papers I'm using are from Basic Grey's Konnichiwa collection, and I've broken out of my rut and actually used a patterned paper as the base. Granted it's probably the most subtle pattern in the whole package, but progress is progress, right? I've utilized a number of the papers on this layout, including the two papers that the flowers and the string of lanterns are fussy cut from.

I knew that I wanted to stitch the string that the lanterns are on, but I was nervous about using a straight stitch. I was afraid that the pressure would cause it to move around/break, so instead I used a very narrow zig zag stitch, and I really like the way it came out. I also used a little stitching on the small letter stickers.



It was a fun layout out to put together, although a little time intensive due to all the fussy cutting, but I'm really happy with the results, and I'm so glad that I got a chance to scrap these photos.

Thanks for coming by, hope your week is off to a great start!

Supplies Used

Basic Grey - Konnichiwa collection; Tombow Adhesive; CTMH Bonding Memories Adhesive; Sweing Machine