Sunday, June 30, 2013

Sketch Craze

So I had one of those moments where I just really wanted to use up the very last scraps of my latest scrapbooking kit from ETM to make some cards. I couldn't handle throwing away any of this pretty paper by Authentique and I've been trying really hard lately, to use everything up instead of stashing it away for later. Because, you know, "later" has a way of taking a really long time to get here. :)

There has been such a plethora of really great sketches lately. Somebody needs to smack me because I feel like a broken record about sketch #105 from The Deconstructed Sketch. I made lots more following that sketch.


Sentiment stamp by CTMH


Sentiment Stamp by Hero Arts, I believe.


I love these colors! And I enjoyed using a variety of shapes for the focal point.


Using different border punch designs was fun too. The center scallop in this one comes from SU I think, it was part of the ETM kit. I also used some SU punches and stamps for the tiny tags.


The "crossword" paper in this collection was really fun. Freestyle! I didn't use a sketch for this one, and this was my last tiny scrap of the crossword paper. "Crazy" stamp by CTMH.



This one looks washed out because of the reflection - I embossed with clear powder over a light colored ink, it looks a lot better without the glare. Sentiment by CTMH. No sketch for this one.


THIS ONE comes from sketch #179 from Stars & Stamps and I used a favorite sentiment from CTMH. I also had a damask kind of stamp that I used with just a bit of versamark ink to watermark the pattern on the sentiment layer, to kind of reflect that pretty pattern on the bottom mat.

Well, that just about does it, all of my scraps from the June Kit are finally gone, just in time for July. Can't wait to see what's next!!

 post signature

Here is a little link to my CTMH sentiment stamps - they are some of my favorite collections and yikes... I hear that some of them are going to retire! July will be the last month!

Monday, June 17, 2013

June ETM Kit

Good aaaahfternoon... or whatever it may be where you are! It's a warm one here today! Feels great! I've just finished up a few projects from Kim's June kit from Express The Moment. Loads of goodies yet again this time... lots of masculine colors and patterns from Authentique, October Afternoon and Pink Paislee to name a few.

Here are the things that I came up with:


Following sketch 177 from Operation Write Home I made two cards.. I used my own stamp for the sentiments... it's from SU and I think it's the cutest cat ever! 


Well, maybe he's not so cute... he DID just yarf up a hairball!
I colored him with Copics. :)


Onward... here are some cards I made following Deconstructed Sketches.. which has really become a favorite "go to" place for me this year. I love them. Here are recent sketches 104 and 105.




No sentiments on these ones. I figure, you could add a photo from your recent Father's Day celebration if you wanted to... and send it to Dad. Wouldn't that be nice? These would also make good layouts for mini-frame projects, or you could even stretch them to make a 4x6 mat for a Project Life style page.

I love... love love love this sketch.



All of these things were in this month's kit! Pretty papers! Lace! Brads! Decorative borders! Cute paper clips! All except the flowers, which I carried over from last month's kit, and the sentiment, which is my own from CTMH. Love that pretty script for a fancy card.


Here is an 8x8 page - up in the corner you will see a scrap of ribbon that I used - this ribbon is also in the kit, and so are the cool kraft border punch embellishment things. This patterned paper is already so pretty, the page didn't need any more embellishment. The "Wonderful You" title is already on that wood paper! I love this design.


I rarely share full 12x12 layouts but I thought that this one was fun. I followed a page sketch by Tiffany Mitchell who is full of awesomeness for ten kinds of reasons... including a book that she published a while ago about layouts. Hey Tiff... how about some more sketches? :) There is room for one 5x7, a 4x6 and a 3x3 photo. I love the crossword puzzle paper. And the plaid... and the denim brads that came in the kit too.

Ahh, Project Life. Here are a few pages made with a combination of the papers that I had left over from the kit. The "Dad" themed papers will make great pieces for this kind of album. I also really enjoyed the chipboard arrows in the kit.


This page just kind of made me laugh... There are a whole bunch of words like these on the Pink Paislee pages... this page looks like it would be perfect for teen girl pics. :D


Thanks for stopping by!



post signature

Saturday, June 15, 2013

Art Impressions / OWH Blog Hop!


Well Hello! Welcome to Scrap Happens!... My little corner of the blogosphere! I'm Nancy... the Tutorial Wrangler from Operation Write Home's blog, Stars & Stamps. I'm super excited today to share the news about two great new fund-raiser stamp sets by Art Impressions!

We're having a little hop today to celebrate these cute sets - the one I wanted to share today is "Sending Love"! I think that you're going to love it.

If you're just joining the blog hop, you can start here - at the Art Impressions Blog!
If you came here from Kerry's Blog... congrats, you have landed successfully!

Here is my little card I made for Operation Write Home using the OWH "Sending Love" set:


What a cute set - it reminds me of childhood when we used to use cups and string to make little "telephones" and we would string them all over the house! I had in my brain, that I wanted to make the little cups look like little Red Solo cups. (Feel free to sing along with me, if you like!) The way that I accomplished this was to stamp the image first on the kraft paper and I heat embossed with white powder to make the "string". Then, I stamped again and embossed the "cups" with white on white paper, and red on red paper. After a little fussy cutting and shading for dimension, I pieced the parts together and added the sentiment, done in red and blue with clear embossing powder. I added a few heart punches and some doodles to finish it off. Here's a close-up of the details.


The two new stamp sets are so much fun and of course they support my favorite cause. I can definitely see making many cards for OWH with them. You can get these cute new stamps here! (Please clicky the words, instead of the photo.)

Click here to order!

I do want you to see what everyone else has created with these two new sets, so be sure to hop on over next to A Touch Of Creation by Piali Biswas. (And isn't that a beautiful name? I can't wait to meet her too!)

Thank you so much for stopping by, OWH'ers and new friends from Art Impressions!


post signature

Friday, June 14, 2013

Deconstructed Sketch #105

Just wanted to reinforce how much fun I am having with Jen's Deconstructed sketches from deconstructingjen.com!  This week I got to do sketch #105.  I love this sketch! There are so many fun little elements that you can use and it was a great sketch to work with. I used some papers and embellishments from my June Express the Moment kit which includes things by Authentique and lots of little strips of coordinating border punches, ribbons and accents.

I did the sentiment with a CTMH stamp from the "4 My Friend" set that has loads of cute card sentiments. I also used a Spellbinders scalloped circle die and a few metallic brads.



Thanks for stopping by!

post signature

Sunday, June 9, 2013

Sketch #176

Another week has gone by... this one went so fast. I had so many things to do and didn't get all of them done. It was nice to have a day to just relax and create today so that I can recharge for this week!

Time to participate in OWH sketch #176! I was really excited about this one because it looks like a great opportunity to use up lots of scraps of ribbons. I have a ribbon thing. I recently went through a whole pile of old kits and things and saved all of the ribbon scraps together in this old basket. Then, Kim gave me some more ribbon scraps this week... squee! I loves me some ribbon! My goal is to make a whole bunch more cards following this sketch, to use up some of this stash.


Here are my cards. I used up the rest of my scraps of "Tommy" paper and a striped embossing folder and some little metal square...thingies. They aren't really bling, and they aren't brads. I like them. Dollar bin, at Michael's.



My other card won't go in the OWH box - this one will go towards a collection I will make for something like this. I'm not sure if that is the place, and I'm open to suggestion of where to send a bunch of cards like these.


I used a sweet stamp set by A-Muse studio called "Fight Like A Girl" and stamped in lots of pinks. Since this card isn't for OWH I used my glitter gel pen generously for the sentiments. :)


My inspiration for this project comes from the sad news this week of the loss of a beautiful lady that I have known for many years. She was a wonderful friend of my Mother's and lived in our neighborhood. She coached our baseball teams and drove us to pre-school and kindergarten. She was one of the most loved parents in the neighborhood and later she became an elementary school teacher. She taught our Josh in first grade and later in life she became such an inspirational supporter of everything from equal rights to hospice programs. I didn't go to her funeral this week. In truth, I don't do well with funerals. I don't mean to be disrespectful, I just prefer to remember people in my own way. Since Jaci lost her courageous battle with breast cancer, I will do something like this in her honor instead. Much love to her sweet family and also to my Mom, who is so sad about the loss of one of her dearest friends.




post signature

More Sketch #175

Did I mention how much I love this sketch?

I made a few more this week... and just wanted to share because I am really, really having fun with this layout.


I really had a lot of fun using inchie-stamps and small punches and sentiments.


This is also such a fun way to use up scraps!!! These were left over from my one-page-wonder scraps.


Little squares - perfect for adding buttons. :)

And now the outtakes... don't you hate it when a card refuses to participate and flops over in the middle of a photo shoot, just as you snap the photo?


On the other hand, that is a cute boy in the background. :)



post signature

Sunday, June 2, 2013

Cards!

Cards! Would you expect anything less? :)

Here are a few that I've been working on lately. The last week of school is upon us and we did have a nice Memorial Day weekend up in the hills. I'm so glad to see how many nice people stopped by for my Memorial Day bloghop post while I was away! Hooray!

One of the latest things I have been working on are some cards for the One Sheet Wonder tutorial over at Stars & Stamps. Yes, this was a few weeks ago. I haven't had time to upload. So sorry! :)



I made duplicates of each. Finally used up some cute patterned paper that I had hoarded away. There are also some cute embossed hearts and an embossing folder by Stampin'Up (shh!) that I used. My sentiment frames were all cut using the Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge and the stamps are just little StudioG sentiments that I love to use over and over again. 

I'm glad to have used up this favorite little piece of hoarded patterned paper. It's cute... but to be honest sometimes I look back at my "favorites" and wonder, "what was I thinking?" Out with the old! That makes room for new papers, right?

Here are a few more that I made this weekend. I decided to use up some more "sample" scraps from CTMH. The problem with doing this is, every time I use up the samples, I talk myself into "needing" more of that paper! This line is Tommy and it is so cute and nautical. I don't have much opportunity to use nautical themes in Idaho. These cards are both making their way to OWH so maybe they will end up in the hands of a sailor. Of course, we send cards to all branches, so there is no garuntee. :)

I followed sketch #175 ... this sketch actually has a really sweet story, it was designed after a card made by one of our OWH cardmakers who passed away. What a fun way to immortalize one of her sketch ideas - I can definitely see myself using this sketch again! It was very fun.



I just love these colors and patterns.


Here is a closeup of the knot work on this card - I attached the button with some twine - I saw this technique on Pinterest once and thought that it was cute and different.

My other sketch is Deconstructed Sketch #103. I have loads of these to get caught up on.
Gonna add this one to the ODBD water challenge because... it's kind of water... ish? Right?


 More knot work - I tried tying something nautical out of some yarn that kind of looks like rope. I think it sort of looks like a fisherman's knot, but I'm knot sure. :) 


Thanks for looking!

Here are a few shots from our Memorial Day adventures. We parked just outside of Yellowstone and got to see quite a bit of fun wildlife. My favorite was a pair of hawks that were um.... very active and affectionate in a tree in our camp. :) They were obviously a mating pair and it was fun to watch them fly and play. I love that hawk screech noise that they make too.

Boys playing football.

My favorite camp people - Mike, Clint, Mom, Uncle Keven...

Lori, Mo, Larry and the campin' dogs, Buddy and Adolf. :)