As Seen on www.cratepaper.com

YEA! Crate Paper put another of my pages up on their blog! One of my goals this year is to try to get published. So lately, I've been participating in their sketch challenges and sending in random submissions. All this week they've had 'Customer Appreciation Week' and have been posting submissions for their three newest lines. I did this page Wednesday, emailed it in Thursday morning, and when I checked the blog Friday afternoon... there it was! It's exciting for me to see it up there. It was the seventh page I've sent in and the second one to be posted by them. It's great motivation to scrapbook more pages and try new techniques and layouts to keep it interesting. Here's the page I did...

It uses Crate Paper's 'School Spirit' line. The colors are fun and I thought they would be good for the page about my Uncle's comic book signing. He was the inspiration for one of the characters... a good guy of course.

Kid at Play

After getting a super nice camera last spring, I went a little picture crazy. A perfect example of this was when my Mom's side of the family came up to the lake. Luckily, my cousin's sons didn't mind having a camera constantly in their face so I ended up with some photos that I really love. The youngest boy, Matthew, probably got the brunt of it. Now, since I have all these great photos, I get to make new scrapbook pages. Here's one using October Afternoon's line 'Campfire'.



I'm still working on my embellishment clusters, so it took me a while to get the buttons and circles to look right. Also trying to work on layering papers. To border the green polka dots, I cut short strips of patterned paper out of the 8x8 paper pack. Then to make them stand out, I inked them with my handy Chestnut Roan ink pad and staggered them. After everything was on the page, I wasn't sure where to put the journaling, so it's hidden under the large photo with a tab that you can pull out. I'm pretty sure this is one of my favorite pages I've done.

First page of 2011

Here is my first completed page of 2011. The pictures and papers have been in my "To Scrap" pile since August and now they are finally hanging on my cork board. (I always hang my two most recent pages on my cork board so I can enjoy them for awhile before putting them in their albums.) The pictures are from the State Fair this summer when I went with my friend Erica and her kids.



The papers are Urban Prairie by Basic Grey. My favorite part (well, one of them) is the title. It's just regular kraft cardstock, but I diecut it using the Zootopia Slice cartridge and then ran it through a Basic Grey embossing folder. Inking the edges was the final touch to give it an ice cream cone texture. I love how it turned out. Plus, I always feel good when I can use different tools together. It makes the investment in them seem justified.

I've also been working on clustering embellishments. Just below the title, I layered paper (with a border punched edge), Tim Holtz film strip ribbon (attached with the Tim Holtz tiny attacher), and wrapped some orange twine. Then pop dotted a cardstock sticker with the date. This is a page that's definately fun to see hanging on my wall.

Willa and Buck

Some of my favorite pictures to scrapbook are ones of my grandparents. I love the clothes and everything else that's vintage. Plus, there's something about seeing my grandma at a younger age that I never get tired of. So a few months ago, when we had a challenge at work to use Graphic 45 paper, I knew I wanted to use an older photo. Instead of having one large photo, I trimmed it in a half and used it as two separate ones and made it into a grid layout. By keeping the layout simple, I wanted to leave the focus on one of my favorite photos of my grandparents.

Just One Good Picture...

Here's another page I did using Crate Paper. It's a mix of last year's Christmas and "Snow Day" from this year. It was fun looking through the pictures I wanted to use. My Mom used a whole roll of film trying to get a decent picture of my sister and I. According to her, she told us we were going to sit there and keep taking pictures until she got a good one. My sister did pretty good, but I guess I just couldn't sit still. These were my favorite four.

Today is a Gift

For the past month or so, all of my scrapbook pages have used the new Crate Paper lines. Here's a page from the Snow Day line, but in a non-winter way. I took a ton of pictures when my Mom's side of the family came to the lake cottage and I loved the colors for the boys playing in the water.

To make the waves stand out more, I inked the edges with Versamark and then embossed with white embossing powder. Everything else is inked with my trusty brown ink.

A pile of love

Just as a disclaimer... I sometimes have the sense of humor of an eight year old. That being said, here's the Valentine I came up with this year. I was inspired by a card at work which had some oddly placed gemstones behind a bird. It reminded me of something else and an idea was born.





The sentiments on the front and inside were typed and printed on cardstock. The deer is the only stamping I did on this card. The layering of papers on the front took a little work, but I really like how nicely it all came together. A little bit of cuteness and a little bit of poop humor... just what everybody needs on Valentine's Day.

Versamark and Clear Embossing Powder

Two of my favorite things to use when stamping are Versamark ink and clear embossing powder. It gives a nice, clean look to a card and it also takes some of the work away from choosing matching cardstock colors. On the base of this card, the leaf pattern was stamped with the Versamark and the squirrel was embossed with the clear powder. Of course, I think it's hard to go wrong with a cute squirrel stamp... just ask my friends. They'll tell you I have a weakness for cute animal stamps.

"Give me all your candy or else!"

This is my first posting showing some cards I've made. I usually sew on my cards which is why they still fit in with "Stitchology 101". However, these cards are probably the one exception to that.

I don't usually do much for Halloween (my Dad and I actually trick or treat a couple months after Halloween; and affectionately call it "random Halloween") but when I saw this stamp set by Stampendous; I couldn't resist. It was also my first try with watercolor pencils. To cut out the hole on the front, I used my Quickutz nesting circles and then used the same circle with my Marvy scalloped circle punch for the ring on the outside. They have a pretty simple layout, but the cute costumed kids make all the difference.

Berenstain Bears and the Fabric Box

Ever since reading the book "Berenstain Bears and the Messy Room" when I was little, I have loved organization. So when I found the book "Sew and Stow" by Betty Oppenheimer I was excited to be able to mix sewing and organizing. Some of the projects include a lumberjack tote for firewood, knitting needle tote, laundry bag, shoe hideaway, and a lunch bag. The first one I wanted to try though, was the fabric box. Most of the projects include instructions and dimensions, but for the fabric box the author just gives suggestions on how to complete it. At first I was disappointed, but once I started on the box it ended up working out well because I was able to customize the box for a specific purpose. I made mine big enough to hold some of the greeting cards that I've made.

To put this box together, the front, bottom, back, and top are all one long piece. Then I just had to sew the two sides on (wrong side out, so the seams are on the inside). To give the box some structure, there is a layer of medium weight stabilizer in between the two pieces of fabric. All of the edges on the box, except on the lid, have raw seams. So I just did a zig zag stitch close to the edge to give them a more finished look. The final step was sewing a button on the front and a piece of ribbon on the under side of the lid for a closure.

While I like sewing, I'm not a fan of the cutting and the pinning. My favorite part is really picking out the fabric. I used three different patterns on this box. One for the outside, one for the inside, and another for the lid. Then of course I made sure that even the button and ribbon for the closure matched. Now that I've made one box, I'm planning on making a couple more. One for my sewing supplies and maybe a couple to sell or for my friends. The best part is that each one will be unique and I get to pick out more pretty fabric!