Inkspiration for Stamping and Scrapbooking

A Few More Christmas Cards

I think this is the first time I've done cards from a kit.... Recently a lss offered a free kit with purchase deal, so there I was with this kit. I got to work making the cards up, but did my usual thing of changing things up, just slightly.

This card pretty much followed the instructions - just added some cocoa ink to the edges. There is red stickles on the ornament and snowflakes, and crystal glaze on the Merry and Bright lettering and the green ornament.

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I added red inking to the edges and cuttlebugged the lower panel to add to the snowy effect. I think it works well with the printed pattern on the snowman.

This card also features red inking, the ornaments cuttlebug and crystal glaze on the bell on the red panel and the dots on the centre panel.

Red ink on the edges, and the tag punch for the letters, instead of just squares. They sort of look like gift bags, a bit maybe?

Thanks for stopping by! - Ann

  

Cherish these Memories

Here's another layout from our trip to Walt Disney World:

The papers are a mix of Bo Bunny and Stampin' Up + some scraps. Doodled flourishes are stamped, along with the word Cherish. The journalling is computer generate.

This is a scraplift and is my response to the scraplift challenge at My Sketch World. The original layout that inspired me was by Alecia Castro.

TFL!

Tree Adornments

While I really admire the lovely decorator trees with all the colour co-ordinated ornaments and ribbons that go on display in magazines and stores every year, my tree never looks like that. Instead, it is decorated with ornaments collected and given to us over the years. Almost nothing on it is plastic, however. That has been my one stipulation. So lots of glass, ceramic and hand-crafted ornaments adorn our tree. Here are a few of the hand-made ornaments given to me by my papercrafting friends.

 I made this one using a clear ornament (easily found at Michaels). I stamped on piece of transparency cut in a circle about the same diameter as the glass ball, using StazOn ink. The image was then coloured with permanent markers. Roll the acetate up to get it into the ball and then use tweezers to "tweak" the positioning. Add some artificial snow and replace the cap.

This one's a little painful to make - it requires shoving a lot of pins through folded paper into the styrofoam ball base, but the effect is well worth it! I love this little pinecone! Next time I'll use a thimble.

If you want to make one, the directions are here.

This lovely ornament started out as a CD. Paper was layered on it and a stamped image was coloured in. Glitter and liquid applique for the snow add to the wintery look. The hole was punched and oversized eyelet set with a cropodile.

The tutorial to make this spectacular star/poinsettia/snowflake (kind of depends on the colours used) can be found here

Here's how that same item looks mounted on a card. Isn't it beautiful?  

A Few More from Disney

There are TONS of photos to scrapbook from our trip, so some layouts are simpler than others - so that it doesn't turn into a lifetime project.

This layout is about the SpectroMagic parade we saw in Magic Kingdom. Ideas for it came from a few layouts I saw on the TwoPeas member gallery.

This is about It's a Small World. There will eventually be a 2nd page, as for some reason, both dd and I snapped lots of photos on that attraction. I tried to pick up on the exoticism of that part of the ride. I used a gold leaf pen around the edges of the page and the leaf shape that came from the background wall mural. Lots of rubons from Basic Grey...

In late October, I attended a class at Two Scrapbook Friends. This layout was designed and taught by Karan Gerber. It was meant to be a Halloween layout, so the title was originally "haunting Halloween" but I tweaked it for this layout about the Haunted Mansion.

Those trees were painstakingly cut from patterned paper after they were treated with a Crackle Glaze to give them shine and a cracked texture. 

Each of the layouts features a little hidden Mickey head - there are apparently all kinds of them throughout the parks, and a lot of the pins (we got into pin trading - layout to follow) feature them too. I think it's fun, so I'm going to try to incorporate one into every layout (not every single page, but somewhere on a double spread.) For fun!  

Family Tree

At the beginning of each month, Two Scrapbook Friends releases a minature kit called the Monthly Product Challenge. There's enough in the kit to make a single page and it usually only costs about $3.50 - so it's a very inexpensive way to get a page done, if the theme works for your photos.

I purchased November's kit way back at the start of the month, and just got to work on it on Friday.

Here's what I came up with. You must use a little bit of everything in the kit, and you may add to it, if you like. All I added was the chipboard letters covered in patterned paper to spell tree. There's lots of ink and distressing to play on the tree theme.

I turned the diecut tree on it's side to be a branch, and scrapbooked these very old photos (10 years!) of dd and her great grandparents. The stickers that spell the word family were also in the kit, but seemed a bit bright for this layout, so I muted them by sponging on blue and brown ink.

What do you think? 

Like a cookie exchange but better...

The other night, my friend Christa had 4 of us for a Christmas card making exchange. Now I've done lots of swaps before but this was different. Rather than mass produce a bunch of cards and then trade them, we each designed 2 cards and cut the materials for everyone else to make them. It was a lot of fun. I showed you last time, the cards I designed. Here, today, are the cards I made there, designed by the other 4 cardmakers.

Red and silver make this one a classy one to give!

 Purple is such a hot colour this year in fashion and it's lovely on this card, using a retired Stampin' Up! set called Frosty.

Thanks Joyce!

  

Red and silver again - aren't they gorgeous together?

Frosty again, this time with moss, burgundy and gold. 

Thanks Shannon.

A scrappy Christmas card, mosaic style. I love the little touches - glitter on the poinsettias, small bling on the snowflake - a stamped title.

Silver and blue always look great. The centre panel actually came embossed like that, making this a very quick card to put together.

Thanks Pam!

Punches, Thickers stickers, some stamping, ribbons and glittery embossing, make this a fun and glittery card.

The background is patterned paper. Isn't this a fun group of carolers? I always liked the Merry Minstrels set.

Thanks Christa!

We had so much fun, we're talking about doing this again in the new year, with birthday and other occasion cards. I can't wait!  

  

Christmas Cards - a Cuttlebug Card & a Stamped Card

First Christmas cards of the season.

This one uses a Cuttlebug folder, brushed gold cardstock, and bright red cardstock. The greeting was stamped with gold ink and embossed with glitter embossing powder and heat set. Some gold cord to finish off. This would be an easy card for anyone who needs to do a mass production of cards - they come together very quickly!

This one works for the challenge over at

the Cuttlebug Challenges blog.

 

The Christmas cardinal was stamped on shimmery white cardstock with black ink and coloured in with Copics.

Then it was layered on cocoa brown cardstock and a patterned paper that I used a border punch on. Ribbon, inked edges and more layers finish the card.

I joined 4 friends last night and brought the supplies to make these 2 cards. They also designed and cut materials for 2 cards each, so we all went home with 10 cards altogether, some great ideas, and a lovely night of friendship and Christmas cheer. Christa had Christmas music playing, we served some tasty Steeped teas and I brought some shortbread that I made using a cookie press. That was fun & easy. I'll be back soon to show you the other 8 cards.

Lots to Show You Today

This is DD's grade four photo.

White gel pen on the scalloped half circle, Crystal Effects (like Glassy Glaze) accents the paper cut-out flowers, felt flowers, Prima flowers, brads, border punches and ink.

We went camping up north in August and celebrated our anniversary shortly after our return. The views up there inspired this card for DH. The sky is sponged with about 3 or 4 colours of ink. Actually lots of sponging on this card if I recall. Images are stamped on glossy cardstock.

DD had her birthday not too long ago and she & her friends went horseback riding for her party. I borrowed some stamps from a friend to play with the horse theme. Lots of background stamping. The colouring is a combination of Copics and Stampin' Up! markers.

The title for this double pager is Oopsie Daisy and tells the story of the reaction when Sarah's autograph book falls during her character greeting with Daisy Duck. The right page was done first, following a sketch challenge posted by Dee during a recent online crop at Two Scrapbook Friends. The left page followed a little later in the day.

The paper flowers were created by punching out scalloped circles and then cutting in toward the centre. Glimmer mist tints the felt branch. Lots of glitter on the chipboard title. Inked edges.

DD also used the sketch challenge for her 8x8 page - didn't she do a great job!

Come on back tomorrow -I'll have Christmas cards to show you and I'll try to get a few more layouts from Disney posted over the weekend.

Thanks for stopping by! 
 

Giveaway!

Oh, I know I say I'm going to post more regularly, and then a month or two rolls by...

I will post some stuff I've been working on this week.

Meantime, there's a wonderful chipboard giveaway here, Tam is being so generous, so click on over and check it out! And come back this week - I will post some layouts and maybe some cards too. Really.

Some stuff to show you

I've been starting to scrapbook a little more regularly again and it feels great! I've also been doing a little cardmaking as there have been a few birthdays to celebrate in the extended family. So here's what I've been up to the last couple of months:

  This page commemorates a recent trip to Goderich, and was inspired by a Karan Garber sketch which can be found in the Exile Island Week 3 section of the forum at Two Friends Scrapbooking. I love the icecream paper and brads!

 A birthday card for my brother in law. He turned 30 yesterday. Happy b-day Colin! This uses the classic SU set Lovely as a Tree and a background stamp, Weathered.

Another birthday card - this one for my brother who celebrated earlier in July. The cardstock is SU, the patterned paper is unknown. Cardstock was run through the cuttlebug. The hardware is Tim Holtz. 3 colours of fine glitter dabbed on the wings.

I'm getting dd's competitive dance photos scrapbooked. Here's the photo of just her. This page started with another Karan Garber sketch. I LOVED this line of papers and embellies by Little Yellow Bicycle called Zinnia and find the colours work really well with the costume.

This is the photo of her dance ensemble, minus one dancer who was away on photo day. This sketch comes from PageMaps. Same papers and embellishment line since these pages will be across from each other in my album.

This is another birthday card. Karan had posted a sketch challenge on a recent Friday night online crop. I used the sketch for the 12 x 12 page and scaled it down to make this 5.25 x 5.25 card. The bird is from a SU set, Christmas cardinal, but I watercoloured it in blue, hoping to make it resemble a blue jay. How did I do?

This page will become a double layout - I'm fooling around with the other page now. This page was done in with the Two Scrapbook Friends product challenge. These are fun and if your lss doesn't do something like this, you should suggest it.  Each month, the store offers a package of goodies for a nominal price - this one was $3.50 I think. You take it home and make up a page. You may add things if you need to . Then post it to the gallery at TSF. It's amazing to see all the different pages that come out of using the same ingredients.  I added the flecked background paper and the buttons - everything else came out of the kit and features Cosmo Cricket's Snorkel line. I guess August's kit will be available on Saturday. I love the challenge of using items I might not have purchased myself and I get a page done at a pretty reasonable price.

This layout was done in response to the Exile Island week 1 challenge, a sketch challenge by Karan.

I used some glitter mist on the chipboard bird and the background paper under the stamping. The title was done by inking the chipboard and then sprinkling on irridescent ice embossing powder and heat setting it.Other than the chipboard and glimmer mist, this page is entirely SU products.

This is a layout for my wedding album. It's almost done - my goal is to have it done before the end of August. It's been my 10 year anniversary project. We got married in 1998 and the photos were put into an album. When I started scrapbooking in 2003-4, I knew I wanted to scrapbook our wedding, but not until I knew more. Scrapbooking sort of went on the back burner when I started selling Stampin' Up! because the cardmaking became the focus of my business. You'll see this page doesn't have a title, and that is because it's part of a theme album. There are white rub-ons beside the photos on the left that talk about friends, so in person there's a little bit of description although you don't see it onscreen.

I think that's it for now - I'll try to post here more often, as I finish pages or cards. If you have any questions or encouragements about what you see, leave me a comment!