Monday, March 31, 2014

Got wood?

Hello my dear blog readers! I have a short post today with one announcement and one pretty card.

I am happy to announce that I am joining the brand new Design Team at Unique Laser Designs - new company based in California that specializes in laser-cut craft items, made from paper and card stock, wood thins and MDF. I had a chance to use their products in the past few weeks and I am afraid I developed a new addition to wood embellishments. Check them out!


And here is my last project using Unique Laser Designs. I covered the big butterfly with a thin layer of gesso, misted with glacier Glimmer Mist, added polka dots using pencil eraser as a stamp and finished with applying colored modeling paste with stencil.

The background paper is embossed cardstock colored with Faber-Castell gelatos.

I also colored white sentiment stickers with gelatos and added more mist to the kraft cardstock.

I already have few other projects in progress. The wood shapes are really fun to work with and they also smell great! :)

Friday, March 28, 2014

What ice cream??

I love this picture of my sassy 2 years old. Her gorgeous honey colored curls, chubby sweet cheeks, ice cream mustache and the look. Oh, that look!

Supplies: patterned paper (Heidi Swapp), stickers (American Crafts, Sassafras), faux eylets (Jo-Ann), shipping tag

I made this layout for Scrappy Hands speech bubble challenge. I used Heidi Swapp papers, oversized shipping tag, American Crafts journaling stickers and few old Sassafras stickers.



Now this sweet little girls is almost 13. I have admit that she looks less adorable but still sassy. And the curls are gone :(

Saturday, March 22, 2014

Lucky stars


Another project using Unique Laser Designs wood shapes. This time just the stars.
 
Supplies: patterned paper (American Crafts), wood stars (Unique Laser Designs), star punches (Fiskars), cardstock (unknown), mist (Heidi Swapp), Silhouette Cameo, staples (Making Memories)

I started by masking white cardstock with several sizes of stars and spraying it with Heidi Swapp gold color shine. The cute jars are cut out from Dear Lizzy Neapolitan patterned paper. The title is cut with Silhouette.

I misted the wood stars with gold color shine. Love how they took the mist! The results are really pretty.


I punched few more stars from white cardstock, misted them and stapled them to the layout.


Cheesy, but I like it! :-)


Thursday, March 20, 2014

Scrapbooking organization: paper scraps

As I promised in my Scraproom Tour post I will go into details how I organize specific supplies. Today I am sharing how I store my cardstock and paper scraps.


I use two sets of Sterilite drawers. I store most of my patterned paper scraps with the rest of the collections the belong to, so the drawers contain mainly cardstock scraps and patterned papers from old paper lines.

I have four color drawers: White/Cream/Grey/Black, Pink/Red/Purple, Yellow/Orange/Brown, Green/Blue. Another drawer contains multicolor paper scraps and chipboard, vellum and other miscellaneous scraps that don't belong anywhere else. I also have a drawer where I keep regular scrap paper, usually notices from school that have one blank side.

 Here is a peek inside my multicolor drawer.

 
Pink/Red/Purple drawer.

I use this system for several years now and it works great for me. It is easy to pull out the drawer and flip through the scraps finding that perfect shade of pink. One thing I learned using this system that is essential in keeping it functional - don't keep scraps that are too small. I know, it hurts to throw them away, but it is impossible to use every tiny scrap you may have. 

Another thing I love about this system - my kids know how to use it and even my 5 years old know where to go when his muse strikes.

Feel free to ask me questions and stay tuned for more organization posts.

Wednesday, March 19, 2014

Having fin with Unique Laser Designs

Lately I had an opportunity to work with laser-cut wood products by a new company called Unique Laser Designs. Here is my first layout using the Friends title, the ladybugs and the hearts.

 Supplies: patterned paper (American Crafts), wood embellishments (Unique Laser Designs), markers (Faber-Castell), stickles (Ranger Ink), Silhouette Cameo

I used paper from Dear Lizzy Neapolitan collection. The big sunflowers are cut with Silhouette Cameo. All wood shapes are painted with Faber-Castell Big Brush markers. The shapes are very easy to paint and two layers give a nice solid coverage.

 I added black diamond stickles to the ladybugs heads.

More crystal stickles to add some sparkle to the hearts.

Shilo, the owner of the Unique Laser Designs, constantly adds new designs to the store. My personal wishlist includes the ballerinas, the bicycles and the feathers. Check them out! The quality is outstanding and the prices are very reasonable. I will be back soon with more projects to share.

Saturday, March 15, 2014

Christmas card layout

A quick post today to share a layout I did last week.

I don't get a lot of Christmas cards but I like to keep the ones that I do, especially if they are photo cards. Usually I add them to my scrapbooks. Here is one I did with Christmas photo card from an old friend.

Supplies: patterned paper (American Crafts), ribbon, buttons (Making Memories), liquid pearls (Ranger Ink), clear circles (Martha Stewart), vellum (unknown), paper clips (unknown)

The layout is based on the sketch from the Scrapbook Express blog.

There is another picture on the back of the card, so the card is not adhered to the layout but rather attached with two paper clips to the vellum photo mat.


I cut out the poinsettias from the patterned paper and added liquid pearls to the centers. Love this sketch!

Friday, March 7, 2014

Favorite Things Friday - Adhesive

Another Favortie Things Friday at Scrap It Girl. Today we all share our favorite adhesive. Here are my favorites:


I have my ATG 700 for years, long before they started to make it in pink and sell to scrapbookers ;-) I use it for everything. If I need to adhere tiny or very thin pieces, like titles cut with Silhouette, I will use the glue pen. My current one is by Martha Stewart.

I love adding dimension to my layout and I was always a big fan of pop-dots. In the last year or so I switched to foam mounting tape. I like that it is a little thinner than pop-dots and that I cut it how I want.

Check what other designers are using and share your favorite adhesive here. Any glue stick gals out there? :)

Thursday, March 6, 2014

Three cards

Three new cards to share. All of them are made from the paper scraps and random embellishments from my stash. 
Supplies: pattern paper (Scenic Route), flowers (Making Memories), clothes pin (Pebbles), shipping tag, twine, lace

I also decorated the inside of the card. The brown patterned paper on the inside is the back side of the green patterned paper on the front.

I made the next card for the die cuts challenge on Scrapbook Express blog. They changed the format of their challenges and each week you can win $10 gift certificate to the store and all projects are entered in the monthly drawing of $25 gift certificate. Check them out! For some reason they don't get much participants so your chances to win are really good :)

Supplies: 4x6 card, chipboard flag (American Crafts), chipboard frame (unknown), distress paint (Tim Holtz), glitter glaze (Lil' Davis), flowers (CM), jewels (Bo Bunny), letter stickers (Authentique)

I painted the chipboard frame with pink distress paint and after that covered it with a thin layer of glitter glaze. The flowers are pre-made die cuts by Creative Memories.


The next card was prompted by the origami challenge at Scrappy Hands. I decided to make a butterfly and after of two hours of searching for origami butterfly tutorial and trying half dozen different designs I found the perfect one. I like that it is almost flat but still looks like a butterfly and it is super easy. Here it is: Origami Butterfly Tutorial by Julia

I used blue origami paper for my butterfly and mounted it on a simple white tag with a stamped sentiment.
 Supplies: patterned paper (Studio Calico), tag (unknown), stamp (JustRite), glitter (Silhouette), origami paper

 
I added few touches of glitter to the stamped sentiment. Now excuse me, I need to make more origami butterflies. It is kind of addicting....

Wednesday, March 5, 2014

2003 vs 2013

Same girl 10 years apart.
I did some heavy embellishing on both layouts and used some product that I usually don't use. Chipboard and a lot of flowers on the first one and more chipboard and cute epoxy hearts on the second one. I know there was a reason why I was saving these Heidi Grace chipboard flowers for the last 7 years ;-) 

Supplies: patterned paper (Bo Bunny, Basic Grey), chipboard (Bo Bunny), Flowers (recollections, unknown), glitter (Silhouette), metal clip (unknown), pearls (green -Making Memories, white - Melissa Frances)




Supplies: patterned paper (Heidi Swapp), chipboard (Heidi Grace), thickers (American Crafts), flowers (unknown), foil pen nib (Jenny Bowlin)


I sure miss the sweet little girl in the first layout but I just love having her all grown up version around. 

Tuesday, March 4, 2014

Scrap It Girl March Challenge

It's been a week since I finished organizing my scrap room and I am happy to report that it is still clean! :) I already made few projects this week and so far I am really happy with my organization choices. I will share the projects later but today I want to show you what I did for Scrap It Girl March challenge.

The theme of the month is Birthdays! I decided to try making the so popular card in a box. I used the basic instructions by Tina Weller . All shapes came form "Make a wish" cut files by Miss Kate Cuttables.


Instead of using the star shape that came with the cut files I used several sizes of Fiskars star punches. Somethimes its is just easier to grab a punch :)



I have to admit that it took a lot of work but the results are really cute. I can see few more of these cuties in my future.

Now go check what other DT members did for this challenge and share your birthday project with us.