Wonder - Authentique layout sketch

Simple layout with a cute picture of Eli checking one of his nature finds. The layout is based on the Authentique sketch from their blog. The papers and the diecuts from the Carefree collection kit. I love the muted colors with bursts of dark peach.

The chipboard letters are from an old Heidi Grace collection. I sanded them and inked with distress ink. After I put them in place I went with silver pen around the edges. The brown ribbon is from Bath & Body Works gift set. I used the back side, without the printed logo. I knew there is a reason why I was saving this ribbon! :)

Supplies: patterned paper, diecuts (Authentique), chipboard letters (Heidi Grace), ink (Ranger), butterfly punch (Martha Stewart), ribbon (Bath & Body Works), buttons(Webster's Pages), staples

Take Twelve - August

Summer .... Lake ... Sand ... Campfire ... S'mores

It just happened that August 12th was the first day of our 4 fabulous days at the Camp Indian Sands. I went with a group of moms from my local MOMS club - just moms and the kids. The kids had the best time playing by the lake, canoeing, making crafts, singing songs by the campfire and making s'mores. I had the best time just relaxing and doing absolutely nothing.

Note: the pictures are actually from August 13th since we spent August 12th packing fro the trip, shopping and driving. I feel ok with that because I did not forget to take my 12 pictures but deliberately chose to take them the next day in the camp.

Last three layouts for Scrap-A-Latte

After 8 years in business Scrap-A-Latte is closing it's doors.I am sad to see another scrapbooking business closing, I had great time designing for the store in the last few months. Right now you can snatch great deals there since everything is 40% off.

Here are my last DT layouts that I did for Scrap-A-Latte. I worked with the Little Yellow Bicycle Paradise collection. I had just the perfect pictures to go with the papers - the ones we took during the Treasures of Oz event in June. Every year our Ozaukee county puts up an event that showcases the natural treasures of the county. (Ozaukee - Oz, get it?) It is always a treat to discover new green jewels and revisit the ones that we know and like.

For the first layout I cut out the word paradise from the patterned paper sheet and used it as a title together with a journaling card from the tickets book. I used two types of Fiskars border punches - one to make a punched frame and one for the leafy corner.

Supplies: patterned paper, tags (Little Yellow Bicycle), corner border punch, border punch, heart punch (Fiskars), letter stickers (Anna Griffin), jewels (Queen & Co.), staples

More fussy cutting in the next layout. I used XL Fiskars banner punch to make a triangle template and than used this template to color the sun rays with Faber-Castell gelatos. The circle is stitched with WRMK floss.

 Supplies: cardstock (Recollections), patterned paper (Little Yellow Bicycle), gelatos (Faber-Castell), floss (WRMK)

 

I had too many frog pictures so they got a double pager :) I used one of the pagemap sketches for this layout.

Supplies: cardstock(unknown), patterned paper (Little Yellow Bicycle, Authentique), tag (Little Yellow Bicycle), circle tag (Making Memories), letter stickers (Martha Stewart), pleated border (Bazzill Basics), border punch (Fiskars), circle punch (Fisakrs), twine, buttons

 

That's all for today. I spent few hours yesterday watching the Olympics and cleaning my scrap desk. Hope to squeeze in few more scrapping hours before we go camping this Sunday.

 

What' your number? Scrap It Girl August Challenge

Really? August already?? The last weeks of July disappeared while we were busy enjoying the company of Ofir's parents that came from Israel. Two weeks of sight seeing, museums, festivals, travelling and just pure family time. We were sad to say good buy. 

Not much free time for scrapbooking but I did manage to make a layout for the August challenge at Scrap It Girl. The challenge is to use numbers. It reminded me about the conversation I had with Ella just few weeks ago on July 13th, which is her birthday. She was concerned that her birthday is unlucky. I assured her that 13, epecially Friday the 13th, the day she was born, is the luckiest day of all.

Supplies: patterned paper (October Afternoon, American Crafts), border sticker (Doodlebug), fabric tab (K&Co), stickers (American Crafts), thickers (American Crafts), office sheer (Maya Road), number dies and diecut machine (Lifestyle Crafts), acrylic stickers (Cloud 9), acrylic paint, staple

 

I have few more layouts in progress and I hope to share them soon. How is your summer going? You you can find time to relax and recharge. I am still working on it :)

Take Twelve - July

Busy busy times here. No time for blog and even (gasp) no time for scrapbooking! But it's all good - summer kids activities, birthday sleepover, meals with friends and even a travel adventure with a girlfriend. I'll try to do a recap post later but now I have only few hours left before our next guests come so I wanted to share my Take Twelve pictures from July. I decided to use one of the prompts and do only portraits. Truth to be said the pictures are from two days - 12th and 13th. 13th was Ella's birthday so I feel like it justifies the exception to the rule. My baby girl turned 11 .... My sweet and cuddly baby is turning into fierce young lady...

 

The pictures are taken with our new D5100. I am still shooting on auto but really want to learn more. And I decided I need a nice bag to carry it. I have low shoulders so it has to be crossbody. I don't want it to be too bulky. It should fit the camera, one additional lens, the flash (when I will learn how to use it) and my personal stuff - purse, notebook, cellphone ... I am looking into Epiphanie bags. Any recommendations?

Inspired by Camp Scrap - card and layout

 Supplies: patterned paper, chipboard (American Crafts), letter diecuts (Heidi Grace), letter stickers (Bazzill Basics), journaling sticker (Creative Imaginations), watercolor paper(), bird punch (Fiskars), gelatos (Faber-Castell)

I am sharing today two projects inspired by fabulous May Flaum and more specifically by her sketch from this Camp Scrap post. As May, I also decided to make a layout and a card based on the same sketch. In September 2000 Ofir and I took a trip to Europe and my parents watched baby Lila. They took her to Club Hotel Eilat. I still have some regrets about leaving her for 10 days. She became sick and really missed us but this post is about scrapbooking and not parenting mistakes. I had this picture of Lila working on a craft project at the hotel and when I look at the rest of the pictures from the same day I saw another one with my mom and Lila holding the dolphin that she painted.

I couldn't fin better papers for those pictures than the new Sketchbook by Amy Tangerine. The gorgeous watercolored background was perfect and I just added two paper strips cut out from another patterned paper and few embellishments.

The big letters are from very old Heidi Grace collection. I knew there is a reason I am keeping them! :)

The clouds are cut from a different paper from the same collection. I diecut the banner from a watercolor paper and colored it with Faber-Castell gelatos.

And here is a simple card based on a same sketch. I let the paper do the talking and added just few minimal embellishments.

Supplies: patterned paper and circle sticker(Sassafras Lass), letter stickers (Authentique), jewels (K&Co)

I am looking forward to May's posts every morning. I know I will not be able to do everything but I certainly feel inspired. And that is good.

 

Take Twelve - June

I feel like just yesterday I was cropping May 12th photos and look, it is time to share my June 12th photos. I decided to go this month with the suggested theme of outdoors. We live in a north suburb of Milwaukee in a very green area with plenty of beautiful views. Ella is taking an outdoor drawing camp this week and their Tuesday location was at Riveredge Nature Preserve. I never been there before and I was happy to discover another beautiful place just 30 minutes from our home. I took 2 pictures of the ponds and a picture of Ella's class marching into the prairie. While waiting for Ella I stopped at Alterra coffee shop in Grafton and snapped a picture of the building, the view of Milwaukee river just behind the building and a row of gorgeous peonies. In the afternoon Ella had a gymnastics class in Cedarburg and I added two more pictures to my collection - Starburcks coffee shop where I often wait for Ella to finish her gymnastics class and a cute little place just across the Starbucks called Out & Out. They sell food made with local products and have a killer custard. I finished with few pictures of out home - the front door with the stairs, the wild backyard, our new hammock and the tire swing and one of the wild flowers that just popped in out yard.

 

Inspired by Camp Scrap - confetti burst

First of all I want to thank all of you that left comments on my Scrapbook Steals Blog Hop post. I had 92 comments, I think that was a record for my blog. I usually try to visit all commenters and leave them a note but it will take hours so please do know that I really appreciate each one of them! I also want to thank my blog readers that  glanced but didn't leave a comment. I had 142 page views so I know you are there :) 

It looks like my iris folding card was a hit so I am thinking about doing something similar in the future with more detailed tutorial.

It is time to move on! It's the first full week of summer vacation. Ella has an art camp this week and even Eli and me took a Nature Tot class today. That went really well, we looked at different colors of the prairie and caught some bugs. All the summer activities don't leave much time for scrapping but I do try to squeeze in few minutes here and there. To keep me motivated I signed up for Camp Scrap - free class by May Flaum right on her blog. There is also a free community at Big Picture Classes for chatting and sharing projects. On Monday May shared how she does confetti bursts on her layouts. I did something similar just recently here using only paper confetti but I thought it will be fun to add some bling.

Here is what I did. Three confetti clusters with stars and some old ancient Doodlebug sequins.

Supplies: cardstock (American Crafts), patterned paper, stickers (Basic Grey), stars (unknown), sequins (Doodlebug), pencil (Faber-Castell)

I used tiny dots of Scrap Happy Glue by The Rubber Cafe to adhere all bits and pieces and overlapped some of the sequins.

 

 I am looking forward to more "camping" adventures this summer! Moms should have fun, too!

June ScrapbookSteals Blog Hop

Welcome to the June ScrapbookSteals Blog Hop!

If it is your first time here, welcome! I am glad you stopped by!

I am super excited to be part of this blog hop and even more excited to work with this super cool American Crafts Glitter Tape. American Crafts brought us many great products that became a staple in the stash of any scrapbooker (thickers anyone?). I think this glitter tape will be one of those products.

When I first saw this tape I immediately thought that I have to try iris folding. Using the tape I don't actually need to fold the strips, I just layer strips of glitter tape following the pattern. The fact that the tape is adhesive on the back really makes the life easier!. I explained how I do iris folding in some older posts so I will not go into details here. There are plenty of good tutorials online.

Supplies: glitter tape (American Crafts), stamps (Teresa Collins), glitter cardstock (Recollections)

To start my card I stamped 4 triangles and a sentiment on a piece of cardstock slightly smaller than my card base.

I used my Fiskars fingertip knife to cut out the triangles.

I traced one of the openings on the piece of scrap paper and created the iris folding pattern. 

The iris is done  on the back side. That's how my card looked like when I worked on the last triangle.

After all triangles were completed I mounted the card front to the piece of slightly bigger glitter cardstock and to the card base.

Simple and festive!

I planned to make a layout but was too busy with all the craziness of the last day week of school. Instead I made few gift card holders where the glitter tape came very handy. It basically holds everything together.

1. Start with 3"x12" piece of cardstock (use one 12"x12" sheet of cardstock to make 4 gift card holders).
2. Score the cardstock 3" from the right edge and 4.5" from the left edge. 
3. Wrap the glitter tape  around the folded edge creating a pocket. 
4. Wrap one or two more tapes around the folded part.

Decorate the pocket as desired. I used diecut label that covered the ends of the tape and letter stickers.

Decorate the front of the gift card holders. I chose the papers and embellishments form the Little Yellow Bicycle Saturdays collection.

And here is the  front:

 

And the back:

And peek inside:

I hope you liked the projects, I know I had tons of fun working with this tape! Don't' forget to visit the rest of the blog hop stations!  Be sure to leave a comment at each stop along the way, since one lucky person leaving a comment on one of the 8 blogs (this includes this ScrapbookSteals blog posting) by Sunday, June 10th at 11:59 PM MST, will receive a $20 gift certificate to use in the ScrapbookSteals store! 

With that I will send you on to the next stop: Ashley Newell at Heart Hugs Designs.

If you get lost here is the full list of the blog hop.

1. ScrapbookSteals http://scrapbooksteals.stealnetwork.com/wp/
2. Becky Williams http://onescrappinmama.blogspot.com/
3. Kimberli Bean http://www.kimberliscreations.blogspot.com/
4. Maya Oren-Dahan http://mayadahan.blogspot.com/
5. Ashley Newell http://hearthugsdesigns.blogspot.com/
6. Miriam Prantner http://mprantner.blogspot.com/
7. Cathryn Hanson http://www.catscrapcreations.blogspot.ca/
8. Regina Mangum http://thestampinbean.blogspot.com/

I am linking this post with WIP Monday on ScrapScene

June challenge at Scrap It Girl

New month, new challenge at Scrap It Girl! And guess what? This month I am hosting the challenge! Is is really easy - show us how you use punches. Shape punches, border punches, corner punches, you name it! As long as it can punch it can be used for the challenge. For my layout I used my favorite Fiskars Border and Corner punch Lace and Lattice to frame the large photo mat. 

Supplies: patterned paper (My Mind's Eye, Little Yellow Bicycle), chipboard spinner, tag, ClearCut shapes (Little Yellow Bicycle), arrow punch, border and corner punch (Fiskars)

To make the zig zag border I punched individual arrows using Fiskars One Way squeeze punch. I glued the arrows under the brown patterned paper, making sure that only the top of the arrow is visible. That's how the back side of the brown photo mat looked like:

 

I tried to use as little paper as possible, that's why my arrows look so strange. It doesn't matter, nobody will see that side.

 The fun confetti are actually the punch-outs from the Fiskars Bubbles border punch. 

 

Stop by the Scrap It Girl website to see what other DT members made with their punches. You can submit up to 2 projects for this challenge and you have the whole month. So no excuses!
If you need a little extra motivation here is what you can win: DCWV All Chalked Up cardstock matstack, Fiskars Limited Edition Under The Tress squeeze punch, MME Stella Rose stamp set, small pillowbox full of random treasures.

Now go scrap!