Wonderful Us

This guy is my favourite guy in the whole world and pages with him in them always come together quickly.  I really do think it's a gift we give our kids when we document the relationship we have with their father.  Years from now they will be realize that we were more than just parents to them, but friends also, people who actually enjoyed spending time together doing things other than cooking, cleaning, and driving them where they need to be.

Every once in a while I get the urge to create on a smaller canvas, and pull together bunches of my favourite elements and layer away.

I chose to document my journaling on a tag that I've tucked behind my photo cluster.

These clear Amy Tangerine stickers are so versatile, I love how they look so much like real doodling.  When it comes to dressing up a page, I'm all about clustering embellishments in various sizes.  Who's to say only a few will do you?   In my scrappy world, it's the more the merrier.

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Sweet & Simple

Today, I want to share with you a couple of sweet & simple layouts using the Penelope collection by Elle's Studio.  As a scrapper who likes to add a lot of layers and embellishments to my layouts, I found that there was really not much that needed to be added with these layouts as the papers are already so detailed. They made for a couple of quick and easy layouts featuring some of my favourite kids.

There are so many sweet saying on this piece of background paper that I really wanted to showcase it on this layout.  Adding a bit of the graph paper helped to ground my photo and journaling, so as not to lose any of their details.

I hand cut these hearts from one of the sheets and added some 3D foam dots to make them pop.

One of my favourite things about Elle's papers is the printed tear strips, they make for fun extra elements to add to your page.  Both the star and scalloped strips here, are just extra little tear strip pieces.

Next up, I wanted to use this pre-printed background sheet. I added a piece of patterned paper from the collection to the inside of a glassine bag to tone down it's boldness and get it to work with my chosen colours, and design.

Meet our little neighbour girl. She has 2 brothers and on this particular play date she snuggled up to Eden and exclaimed to her mother that she wished she lived with us so she could have sisters.  Little sweetie.

I thought I needed just a touch of pink on this layout, and the packaging from the little polaroid frames provided just the touch I needed. 

Once again the tear strip from the bottom of this sheet made for the perfect touch on my layout.  Add a couple of buttons and baubles, and done.

I hope this encourages you to dig into your stash and revive an older collection while you wait too.  If you're all caught up and ready to get your hands on some new product, hop over to the Paper Issues shop, where you'll find all sorts of new goodies waiting for you including Lawn Fawn dies, and papers Kelley Purkey's Second City Collection, and Crate Paper Notes & Things, with more arriving all this week. 

Thanks for stopping by today friends!

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Birthday Boy

It was sketch challenge day over at Scraptastic yesterday.  Susan once again gave us a great sketch to work with.

Mr Wilson celebrated 4 years a couple of weeks ago.  Isabelle thought he needed to have a cake, so she made him a "cheese cake" out of cheese slices (held together by toothpicks), and placed a candle in it.  Just love this photo of him licking his chops after getting a little taste of it.  The It's My Life kit and Add On kit was full, full, full of all sorts of great October Afternoon, and Elle's Studio tags, and if you know my style at all you'll know how much I love incorporating tags into my scrapping.

Some great stamps in this kit.

This is Susan's sketch.  So many photo placements and/or journal placement possibilities. 

Hop over here to see what the rest of the team did with the sketch.  And you can go here  to get yourself set up for a monthly pizza box full of scrappy goodness.

Here are some sneaks of what coming next month.

Worth Wandering Kit

Let Me Go

This Life Noted 

So great stuff for you all this month, and the stamps are pretty awesome too, especially the This Life Noted alphabet set.  I can't wait until my box shows up.

Happy Friday friends, hope you're in for a great weekend.  I'm more looking forward to next week, as we will finally be off for Spring Break.  If the weather would only begin to feel Spring-like we'd be very happy campers here. Pin It

How I Love Them

This month's Feel Again kit and Add on Kit had so many bits and pieces in it that I wanted to come up with a way to use as many of them as possible on a layout.  I came up with a challenge for myself: to use only embellishment pieces to create my layout, no cardstock or patterned paper (other than my background).  Here is what I came up with.

As you can tell I failed on the "no patterned paper" thing.  I used a mask and some gesso to create the background on which to build my layout.  I then layered several pieces from the Fancy Pants ephemera pack, the Crate Paper clear tags pack, a couple of Fancy Pants tickets, some My Mind's Eye puffy stickers, and a few Echo Park cardstock stickers.

I was also itching to try out the Tim Holtz Distress paint and found a way to incorporate it here too, the bonus was that it doubled as adhesive for the wood veneer pieces.

In order to add a little more definition to the acetate heart I used my sewing machine to stitch it to the layout.  Once I finished adding all the pieces I wanted to the layout, it somehow seemed unfinished.  After leaving it for a bit I realized that it need just a little more colour and definition, hence the addition of just a touch of patterned paper on the edges.  So I didn't fully complete my challenge, but I did manage to use up several happy little pieces.
This second layout is a photo of my hubby that he had to have taken for his job.  They wanted a headshot to put on their website, and to use for their PR Press Release introducing him, and outlining his new role for the company.  I thought it would be fun to scrap the photo, as I'm sure one day we'll look back at it, and talk about how young and professional he looked (snicker).

Because it's a masculine layout, and one in which I really wanted to keep the focus on the pic (and less on the awesome scrappy product), I kept the embellishments to a minimum.

I used my Silhouette to create a cut file to use as a background, as well as my title, I then added a little flair to the edges by hand stitching. (the paper clip heart and chalkboard flair are from my stash)

This Elle's Studio cards worked nicely to record my journaling, and hide behind the photo. Hiding the journaling helps to still record the story, while keeping the layout clean.  Two different layouts, two different approaches.

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Getting Sketchy with Scraptastic

Here is my take on this's month's Scraptastic Club sketch.

And here is Susan's awesome sketch.

Darwin and I love to go to Bomber games.  We love cheering them on (or should I say loved, seeing as they are really stinkin' it out this season, lol)  It's one of the few things we actually make time to do together.  This photo was taken at the last game we attended with friends.  It was exciting as it was our first time to the brand new stadium to watch the Bombers play.

This layout was made using mostly the I Found A Boy Add On kit found here, and the Stamp Add on found here

Hop over here to see what the rest of the DT did with the sketch.  Perhaps you'd like to play with it too?  You may win yourself a $10 gc to the Scrapstastic Store for playing along with us.  We have a few challenges every month.  The more you play the better your chances of winning.

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New Wheels

Here is a quick layout I did for Scraptastic Club last week, documenting Darwin's upgrade form the family van to a vehicle all his own.

I was happy to take over the RAV4, with it's all wheel drive, and better gas mileage than the van, I really wasn't too concerned with what he bought, even though he did ask for my input.  It's his vehicle, so he was allowed all the say.  Of course he went for a more sporty look, with all the upgrades.  That's my guy, always such pricey taste. It was pretty funny to see all the sales guys coming out from lunch to check out his new wheels though. I know he felt pretty darn good about himself.  This was apparently the first vehicle in the city like it (not just the standard version).

I used my Silhouette Cameo to cut the chevrons directly into the white background paper.  The file is a free one from the super talented Kinsey Wilson that I modified.  Everything on the this layout came from the I Found A Boy Main kit, with the exception of the yellow Jillibean Soup alphas which are from my stash, and the Elle's Studio round tags, and enamel dots, which are from the Add On kit (which is still available in the shop here).  The Stamps are from the Add On stamp pack, which you can find here.

If you have a sec, I encourage you to hop over and check out the other kits available in the Scraptastic shop.  Jessica puts together some really great kits, and she has no contract to sign for monthly subscribers.  You can also see a lot of inspiration in the Gallery here. Pin It

Using an un-inked stamp

That is this week's challenge at Use It Tuesday.

This one was a little tricky for me as I don't own a ton of stamps and almost all of them are in fact inked.  My scrappy friend Tara, however, was a sweetheart to lend me a cute set I was drooling over a few weeks ago.  She's sweet like that, she just let me take them home to use whenever I got a chance.  This was the perfect opportunity.

Here are the hoarded supplies I used on this layout.  Only the stamps are borrowed.

Studio Calico: stamps & cardstock stickers, My Mind's Eye 6x6 paper pad, Pink Paislee mistable trim, not shown

And here is the layout I created, documenting my love for Mongos, a Mongolian barbecue restaurant near our home.

 My mouth is watering just looking at the photo.  

Journaling read "Also known as my birthday restaurant.  I love Mongo Mongolian bbq.  I create the same dish every single time.  It's guaranteed to satisfy."

I stamped directly onto the photo using Ranger Archival Ink.  It has a wonderfully rich tone, and transfers easily.  You need only be sure to hold the stamp very still when applying, otherwise you risk smudging the image.

Jillibean Soup, and My Mind's Eye label stickers.  Journal spot is Echo Park

Pop over here to see what the rest o the team created using an un-inked stamp.  You have until the end of the month to link up your own creation, and get a shot at being our Guest Designer in an upcoming challenge.

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