Pictures from the past

It's not very often that I make layouts with pictures of myself but today I am sharing not one but two with some oldies.

The first is a simple layout with a picture from 8 years ago.It was taken on January 1st, 2006 at Milwaukee's breezy lakefront. On that day we braved the cold and went to see the annual kite festival.

I had few big snowflakes cut with Fiskars Fuse that I spread over the page and misted with light blue glimmer mist. I used one big snowflake to embellish the picture.

I embroidered few small snowflakes and triangles through the punchanella holes.

The next two pictures are from November 1998, 5 days before Lila was born. The pictures are the original prints from 15 years ago.

Supplies: patterned paper, vellum, thickers, chipboard (American Crafts), glitter glaze (Li'l Davis Designs), tags (Simple Stories), metal clip (Freckled Fawn)

I don't think I even owned maternity clothes back than, I was so small.

I covered chipboard clouds with a thick layer of glitter glaze.  It is very old product that was made by Li'L Davis Designs. I love this stuff! Do you have a favorite old product? I would love to hear!

Shiny star for the new year

Happy New Year my dear blog readers! I wish you a wonderful 2014 filled with exciting adventures, new accomplishments and warm hugs!

I am starting 2014 with new layout for the Scrap It Girl January challenge. The theme of January challenge is Resolutions or Shiny star. I am not that big on resolutions, especially on keeping them, so I decided to make a layout about my recent visit to New York. Lila and I spent the day in the city looking at the Holiday Window Displays, taking a tour of the New York Public Library and enjoying the festive vibe of the season.

The pictures on this layout are from the Bryant Park Holiday Shops - what a great place! We had our lunch there - butternut squash soup and sweet potato empanados for me and pita with falafel and hot chocolate for Lila.

Supplies: patterned paper (American Crafts, Martha Stewart), jewel (Martha Stewart), letter stickers (Target), Silhouette Cameo, snowflake charms

I designed the nativity star in the Silhouette software to mimic the star ornaments on the tree and cut it from American Crafts foil cardstosck.

Check what other design team members did for this challenge and share your project for a chance to win a great prize.

Speaking of resolutions, I have a huge bin of single yarn skeins. Any ideas for small knitting or crochet projects?

Fruit cups for class party

Today I am on Samantha Walker blog, sharing how I made this festive fruit cups for my son's Kindergarten holiday party. Stop by and check it out!

 

Samantha Walker Creative Team December Blog Hop

Welcome to Samantha Walker Creative Team Blog Hop! This month's theme is Holiday Gifts!

You should have arrived here from Aimee's blog. This month's giveaway is the Holiday Magic Clear Stamp Set!

 All you need to do to win this giveaway is to enter below. You can earn multiple entries by following us on Facebook, commenting below, tweeting about the giveaway, and signing up for the email updates. By commenting you will also be eligible for this free SVG/Silhouette cut file.

a Rafflecopter giveaway


The winner will be announced on Monday, 12/16 on Samantha's Facebook Page.

Now to my project. One of my favorite gifts is handmade cards. I am always on a lookout for creative packaging ideas as we all know that cute package sometimes is not less important than the gift itself.
That's why I got excited when I saw Samantha Walker A2 3D Stationary Box.

I chose pretty pink paper from Samantha Walker Giddy Up! Girl for Carta Bella.

You can make the whole box using only two sheets of 12x12 paper but I wanted to make the contrast panels from another pattern paper and added the third one. Here is the great tutorial by Samantha how to assembly the box. I will show you the modifications I made.

First I cut the box body and the cover flap from pink stripped paper.

The side of the box is cut from the second sheet of the same paper.

Next I wanted to decorate my box with lace edge. I opened Eyelet Scalloped Edge Card and used the knife tool to cut the lace edge off. I adjusted the width of the lace to 5.605" to be the same as the box.

I closed the shape by drawing the line on the top and grouping everything together.

I cut three copies of the laced edge and two more in smaller size to fit the sides of the box. I also cut the contrasting panels for the cover flap.

 

After the box was done I decided to make a tag using the free file that you can get by commenting on the posts in this blog hop.  

I resized the tree to be 4" high (don't forget to lock the aspect ratio), made a duplicate and deleted the circles from the second copy. I cut the top layer from patterned paper and the bottom from glitter cardstock. This little tag is enough to write a holiday wish on the back. 

All ready to be filled with handmade cards.

Thanks for stopping by today and during this year. I can hardly believe that 2013 is coming to an end. This is my last blog hop with Samantha Walker 2013 Creative Team. Looking back, it was a great year of learning and trying new things. Some of my most favorite projects were made for the blog hops. Here they are, all twelve of them.

Don't forget to sign up for Samantha's Newsletter through the Rafflecopter widget to receive your free SVG and Silhouette Studio file!

Click on the image below to head over to Claudia Harvey!

Click on the photo below to go to your next stop!

Three more layouts

As promised, three more layouts based on My Scraps & More November sketches.

Sketch 55. I am pretty happy how this turned out! I used Samantha Walker Cool Summer collection for Carta Bella and wooden veneer embellishments from Freckled Fawn.

How cute is that little frame??

Sketch 56. I used some very old products and even older pictures from my pre-digital era photo albums. 

 

The last one is based on sketch 57. More pictures from the same photo album. Here I mixed the old paper with new Simple Stories journaling cards and stickers. 

The circles are done with Faber-Castell gelatos.

That was really fun! Can't wait to see the December sketches!

This is what I like to do

Last week I abandoned my never-ending to do list and decided to make a layout. 

And than I made another one and another one. And it felt so good. This is what I like to do - making scrapbook pages, moving pictures around the page, picking up the embellishments, trying new things.

 

I love doing scrapbooking challenges because they give me a starting point - a sketch, a recipe, a color scheme. For these two layouts I used sketches from My Scraps & More Sketches blog. The first layout is based on sketch 53.

All products on this page are really old - do you remember Doodlebug borders? The green is a regular tissue paper adhered with wet adhesive.

This layout is based on sketch 54. More old supplies here with some new bits and pieces. But the pictures are fresh - from this October!

I added glitter to the pieces of patterned paper and tucked the journaling in the glassine envelope behind the picture.

The buttons and the camera embellishment are sewn to the page with gold thread.

I have three more layouts to share tomorrow and two more in progress. So good to be back.

Turning Fifteen birthday card

Supplies: cardstock (unknown), patterned paper (Carta Bella), pearls (Melissa Frances), ribbon (unknown), Silhouette

Today I am sharing how I made this card on Samantha Walker blog.  It is made using only Silhouette cuts - no stamping involved!

I really like how it turned out. What do you think?

Samantha Walker Creative Team November Blog Hop

Welcome to Samantha Walker Creative Team Blog Hop! This month's theme is Thankful!

You should have arrived here from Aimee's blog. This month's giveaway is the Carta Bella Paper Giddy Up Boy 12x12 Collection Kit!

All you need to do to win this giveaway is to enter below. You can earn multiple entries by following us on Facebook, commenting below, tweeting about the giveaway, and signing up for the email updates. By commenting you will also be eligible for the free SVG/Silhouette cut file.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

The winner will be announced on Monday, 11/18 on Samantha's Facebook Page.

Now to my project.  I am thankful for my parents.

I used this picture of my mom and Eli taken during my parents visit this past August. I wish we would have more moments like that.

I used Samantha Walker Traditions paper collection for Carta Bella.

I took three sheets of 6x6 paper, curled the corners and used them as my photo mat. I tied them together with twine using the pre-punched holes in the paper.

I added few stickers from the same collection, handcut flowers and pearls.

Thanks for stopping by and Happy Thanksgiving!

Don't forget to sign up for Samantha's Newsletter through the Rafflecopter widget to receive your free SVG and Silhouette Studio file!

Click on the image below to head over to Claudia Harvey!

Click on the photo below to go to your next stop!

 

The Sky's the Limit

In the last week and a half I am organizing my new scrap room/home office - unpacking, moving furniture, deciding what goes where.I think I am about 80% done. I forgot how great it feels to have an organized space. The work is not done yet (where are my crafting mats and my Revolution??) but I felt like I have to "test" my new space and make a layout.

I picked a picture that Eli brought from school. His speech teacher Mrs. Peterson took it and sent it home (I already love Mrs. Peterson!). I used sketch 31 from "Yotzot mehakavim" blog and new "Rough and Tumble" collection by Samantha Walker for Carta Bella.

Supplies: patterned paper, chipboard (Carta Bella), envelope (Recollections), stencil (Jenni Bowlin), sparkle texture and paint (Martha Stewart)

I added an envelope behind the picture for hidden journaling. I want to write down how Eli and I are adjusting to the kindergarten and all the conflicting thoughts I am struggling with right now.

I used Martha Stewart sparkle texture medium with some metallic paint to add a little interest to the corners.

Creating does make me happy and with my new scraproom I also feel like the sky's the limit ;-)

Scrap It Girl November challenge

Hello my dear blog readers.Weeks pass by and I still can't get back to that place where I was able to devote few hours a week doing what I love the most - playing with paper. But today I do have something to share. I really stepped out of my comfort zone here and made 4 mini canvases. I was inspired by a special person I know. Her name is Carrie and I made this thinking about her. I am not sure what I think about the final results. I have this strange thing, I always like my layouts but usually I am very critical of myself when I am trying to do something different. But I enjoyed working on this project very much.

This month I host the Scrap It Girl Challenge. The challenge is to use stencils (check the picture of the prize pack on my left side bar!) I used 4 different types of stencils here, one of them (letter C) I cut out using Silhouette Cameo. I used Faber Castell gelatos, glitter glaze and modeling paste, mist, inks and sharpie.

 

I snapped few pictures along the process.

Check what other DT members did using stencils and don't forget to submit your project.