Duckface

Paper Issues has a brand new Issue out today.  "Say Cheese" is the theme, and I went with the "cheesy photo" take on it.

I was pretty happy to discover these photos on my phone a day after I left my purse unattended at the Dance Studio while speaking with one of the directors.  I don't think I could ever have too many photos Haley and Théa together, they make for some pretty great scrapbook pages with funny titles.

If you know me at all you know that I love embellishments, and Maya Road has no shortage of them.  These little transparency frames are pretty darn cute, I really like that they're tiny.

I think the ampersand clips may be my favourite embellishment of all time.  I burned through the package I ordered in no time.

Another little transparency frame, and some fabulous fabric tape.  This was the first time I've used the tape, it goes on so well, and sticks so nicely.  I used the Teresa Collins Something Wonderful collection to create this page, the background paper is by Fancy Pants designs, both of which I ordered from Paper Issues.

Get your hands on some of these fab Maya Road goodies in the Paper Issues shop here.

Link up a creation of your own for this issue to be entered to win a Maya Road goodie bag.  The DT has some pretty fab inspiration pieces to help get your creativity going.  You can check those out here.  

Happy crafting friends, looking forward to seeing how you interpret the theme.

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Something Wonderful

I am loving the new Wonderful Collection by Teresa Collins.  I think it's the colour combination that I like best.  If you were to look through my most recent layouts you would discover that I scrap a lot of pink, aqua, white, cream, and yellow.  This collection has all of those colours, but also has bold reds, and blacks.

Aren't those enamel shapes the best?  I especially love the chevrons.  I need more of them in my life.  And that striped paper, just begged to be made into a giant chevron, I wish I would have ordered two pieces of that one.  In hindsight I see that the sticker journaling is a little hard to read along the bottom, it reads "they make me so very happy".

Still loving pinwheel emebllies.

I just love this photo of the girls.  So often we get asked if they are twins, and here I can see why people may think so.  I loved this costume, and this Jazz routine!

Love the collection too?  Use my code to save 20% off your next Paper Issues order.  Or any Paper Issues order for that matter, any time.

Happy shopping, and thanks for popping in today! Pin It

Creative Scrappers Reveal

It's reveal day at Creative Scrappers, and I have a new layout to share with you.

I loved this grid sketch, and found it super easy to work with, especially when mixed with the December Scraptastic Kit (I must add that this kit is already sold out, but the Jan kit is now shipping. You can see it here.

Mr Robb is such an inspiration to my girls, and many others of Kick It Dance Studio.  He is so talented, but even more so caring of all his students.  He takes such pride in each of them, especially when he sees them working hard to perfect what he has taught them.  I just love watching him teach my girls, and will forever be thankful for all that he has poured into them.

The papers and embellishments are so gorgeous. The kit features Teresa Collins You Are My Happy Papers, and embellishments.

I created that frame using my Silhouette, I found an ampersand that was similar to the one in the sketch.

Sketch by Kristine Davidson

We are fortunate to have My Creative Scrapbook as our sponsor this month, they've offered up this great kit for one of our lucky readers.  

To be eligible all you need to do is create a layout and enter the challenges using our inlnkz widget at the end of the reveals for Sketches 259-260.  Now please pop over to the Creative Scrapper blog and see how the rest of the team has put the sketch to use.  

Thanks for stopping by today friends! Pin It

Sketchy Thursday with Scraptastic & a Giveaway

It's that time of the month at Scraptastic...when Susan inspires us to think outside our comfort zone and work with one of her her sketches.  I really loved this months' sketch, it was so easy to work with and allowed me to use several of the gorgeous papers in the Home For The Holidays Main kit, as well as the stamp set.

silhouette cut file by Juliana Michaels

This kit is gorgeous, perfect for this time of year.  The Fancy Pants Merry Little Christmas collection is my favourite Christmas Collection, and paired with Teresa Collins, Echo Park, and Carta Bella it's all that much more beautiful.

Embossed one of the stamps in the set and used red glitter Zing, the green tree is also from the set.

I raised the letters off the page using 3D tape.

Aren't those ornament wood veneers the cutest?!

 And how about an early Christmas gift for you?  Jessica has graciously offered me both the kit and stamp set to give away to one lucky person.  She will even take care of the shipping, she's that great!
All of this, could be on it's way to you to scrap your own Christmas/holiday memories.

Home For The Holidays Main Kit

Home For The Holidays Stamp Set

Here's how to enter:
1) Hop over to this post on the the Scraptastic Blog and leave Jessica a little love for the giveaway.
2) Make sure you're following my blog.
3) Leave me a comment letting me know how you document your Christmas photos (Dec Daily, Mini Album, a few scrappy pages says it all?  I'm always curious to know how others do it, I tend to jump around from year to year.

Want a bonus entry?  Simply share the link to this blog post on your FB page and leave me a comment telling me you've done so.

I will use Random Generator to choose a winner on Sunday at 6 pm CST, and post the winner on my blog on Monday morning.

Good luck everyone! Pin It

October Already?!

Happy first day of October (ouch, it pains me to even type that).

I'm starting to wonder if I will ever feel completely rested ever again.  September has already come and gone, and here we are well on our way to true Fall like temperatures, windy days, and Thanksgiving right around the corner (well in Canada anyway)

It has been a busy and tiring start to the school year.  I feel tired so early these days.  It's 9:30 pm right now and I am ready for bed.  Blogging as not been nearly as often as I'd like, but I'm trying friends.  I have several layouts completed for DT assignments, and I'm all caught up with my Moments In Between Album, so I really do have work to share with you, it's just the blogging about it that is hard to fit in.  I hope you'll bear with me.

I received Shelley's gorgeous flair buttons the other day, and cannot wait to start incorporating them into my pages.  I started with my first one this past weekend.  Remember the quick trip to Minneapolis to watch the Vikings play, that I told you about here?  Well I used the September We Are Family Kit from Scraptastic Club to scrap it out.

The Button is from the Go, Go, Go set at A Flair For Buttons.  Super cute right?  The set is actually a travel set, but worked perfectly for my sports themed page.

Used my EK Sucess Label Maker and some of the Teresa Collins Family Stories embellies here.

Added a little more dimension to the page by layering and popping this little "true story" icon off my page with Pop Up Glue Dots.

Totally broke out of my mould on this one.  What started as a clean grid with 4 2x2 photos ended up being way more fun and festive than I had anticipated, totally fitting to the theme.  There's a lot of journaling, I'm not going to retype it here as I usually do.  You can click on the photo to enlarge it if you're interested.  It's basically the story as I described it in the post a few days back.

Thanks for stopping by today friends.

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Creative Scrappers Reveal #252

It's Reveal Sunday over at Creative Scrappers, and I'm so excited to share my take with you.

I used the gorgeous Teresa Collins Summer Stories Collection for this one.  I can't believe that I had never really known much about her collections until just recently at CHA Summer in Vegas.  Her colour schemes are gorgeous, and I really love the quantity and variety of the embellishments she includes with each collection.

Check out this sketch.

I think I may have a sketchy crush on Jenny.  It's always fun to work with a design that is quite a stretch outside of my comfort zone.  I was totally inspired by the strips, and the fact that the TC collection came with a package of border strips was just perfect.  (I added a few more created out of patterned paper to make up some of the colours that were missing.)

Wanna play along with us?  Hop over to the Creative Scrappers Blog to see how the rest of the team interpreted the sketch, and check out our sponsor info.  You have until October 31st to link up your newly made creation here to qualify for the monthly prize. Did you know you can also share your creations with us on our Facebook Page, and even on Instagram by tagging #CSsketches.  We love to see your work.  NB: winners will ONLY be selected from layouts linked up to the blog post using the Inlinkz tool, so be sure to link up there too.

Happy Sunday friends, and thanks so much for stopping by today! Pin It

Pinterest Inspired

Had this little tutorial up on the Scraptastic blog earlier this week.

Our Scraptatic kits often include washi tape, and I'm not always sure how to put mine to use.  When I found this washi tape banner on Pinterest, I thought it would be fun to recreate it on a layout.

source

I simply grabbed a length of American Crafts jute.  And tore off about a 3" length strips of washi, folding it around the jute and adhered it to itself.

Once my banner was complete I created the base of my layout.

I then placed my handmade banner where it worked best.

You'll noticed I went with the traditional pennant style rather than the basic triangle shape for my banner.

And here is my completed layout.

The Quote is also a Pinterest source.

I used both the We Are Family Main Kit and Add on Kit featuring the Teresa Collins Family Stories Collection, to complete this layout.

Has Pinterest inspired you lately?  What have you created with that inspiration?  I would love to come over and have a peek.

Thanks for stopping by today friends.  Have a wonderful Thursday! Pin It

Paper Secrets Guest Spot

It's the 15th of the month, which means it's time for Sketch Challenge #2 over at the Paper Secrets Blog.  Kelly created another great sketch for us to work with.  I worked with the Summer Stories Collection by Teresa Collins and came up with the layout pretty quickly.

That "Life" is cut using my Silhouette Cameo.  I actually combined a couple of different fonts to get the look I was after.  I began with the Lobster font, it's one of my favourites when welding titles.  I did't however like the upper case "L" or the "F" in the font once it was welded.  The solution was to take those letters from a couple of different fonts and weld them into the Lobster font.  The "L" is from the Holla font, and the "F" is from the Apple Chancery font.

As usual I've layered many of my elements on this layout.  Only the buttons, the Studio Calico wood veneer, the Chic Tags pennant, and the Scraptastic custom flair are not from the Summer Stories Collection kit.

I loved working with this kit, and have Kristi and her shop at Paper Secrets to thank for it, as it's not a collection we have in my local LSS, so I never would have known how gorgeous it is without them. Paper Secrets has a number of great products in their shop, at great prices.  Right now, in fact there is a great deal on patterned papers, collection kits, and all cardstock.  This same collection kit is available in the shop at a super price, check it out for yourself here.

A huge thank you to Kristi and her team for having me along for the ride this month.  It was a real honour to have been asked, and a definite joy to have played along.  I sure hope I get to meet up with them again at CHA in January.  I've got my fingers crossed I'll be able to attend.

Now go and get your craft on.  You have until August 31 to link up a newly created layout to the Paper Secrets Blog using the sketch, and adding the twist to use 5 or more buttons on your layout for your chance to win a $10 gift certificate to the shop.

Thanks for stopping by today friends.  Leave me a comment, and I'll be sure to swing by and leave you some love also. Pin It

Paper Secrets Guest Designer

I was contacted by Kristi several months ago to consider a spot as their Guest Designer for August.  I was thrilled of course at having been asked.  I was even more thrilled at the opportunity to meet both her and her shop partner in crime Rochelle at CHA last week.  It was so great to have them stop by the Chic Tags booth.

Kristi(L), Rochelle(R)

For those of you unfamiliar with Paper Secrets you can check them out here. They are a paper crafting shop and challenge blog, with new sketch challenges with a twist released twice monthly.

I had the pleasure of working with the Summer Stories collection by Teresa Collins.

It is gorgeous, check it out

I had a really great sketch to work with.  A good sketch, combined with a fun new photo, and this gorgeous collection all made for a fairly quick layout for me.  Here are a few sneaks of my layout.

The twist this week is to use an embellishment with text, hence the Freckled Fawn "love" heart.  I'd love for you to pop over to the Paper Secrets Blog and see my completed project.  There will be a lot of inspiration from the DT also.  You may also link up a project of your own for your chance at a $10 gift certificate to the store.

Thanks for stopping by today friends! Pin It