Hawkins is my bestie!

The dictionary defines bestie as a person’s best friend. I think Hawkins is one of my best friends. Friends bring you joy in its simplest form. Looking at Hawkins makes my heart happy. He deserves is own scrapbook pages don’t you think? Along with my life long goal of scrapbooking my kids (I say lifelong as I will never actually be finished as I will never be finished taking pictures) I am going to add scrapbooking my Frenchie to the list.

This picture of him was actually the perfect fit for this fall page! Here are some of the fun elements on this page—-copper re inker mixed with white embossing paste! I used the new _____stencils or masks from the Holiday catalogue to create this random background pattern. I created the leaves inking the leaf dies on the copper, gold and sliver Delicate ink pads and then running them through the Big Shot. These dies can work like a stamp. They are designed to emboss and cut at the same time which is pretty darn cool! And of course a little foil paper never hurt anyone, and they

Who is your bestie?

Mine is my Hawkins :)

Fall stampin'...

Creating fall scrapbook pages are actually my favourite! I love the colors of fall and the feelings of gratitude that accompany this type of year. In Alberta, fall is a magnificent gorgeous time of year. The changing of summer into fall, the return to routine and just the beauty of it all gets me into a completely creative zone. I love to design pages and cards that feature leaves as there are so many different ways to stamp and develop them for my work. On this page I used the new ___________ stamps set along with the Colourful Seasons framelits. My favourite trick is to take the leaf die and press it into an ink pad and then zip it through the Big Shot. The die acts like a stamp and transfers the ink Ito the grooves of the die. It is an amazing effect!

There are so many ways to give leaves texture including different background stamps, inking framelits before running though the Big Shot and using Designer Series Paper. The possibilities are actually endless!

For the Win!

When I made up my wish list for new stamp sets I HAD TO HAVE this set, For the Win, from the current Idea Book and Catalogue was at the top of my list! I have had it on my shelf since June (holla if you can relate!) and finally had a chance to ink it up. I have a monthly page class that meets the last Wed afternoon and evening of each month. The theme for this month was something sports, I knew immediately I was going to use this set (in fact the theme was my idea, hahaha!). I decided to create one page to showcase all three of my kids soccer photos. Here is a hot tip—my first attempt was the stamp the soccer balls with white craft ink on black card stock and emboss them with white embossing powder. They looked weird. So these soccer balls are stamped in Momento ink onto white paper and actually look like a soccer ball! Success! I also designed this page that the soccer ball can be swapped out for the class participants sport of choice. The stamp set includes a golf ball, football, basketball, and a baseball. Sadly, no hockey puck! So this will allow them to customize this page to their needs. The colors are also fairly gender neutral as well. The trophy is stamped on Crushed Curry card stock using the gold Delicata ink pads which will be releasing with the new holiday catalogue in September. I love this page and the colors so much that I

Fun tip!

To create this background I placed all 4 stamps on my block and stamped them in a random pattern. You can tell that each background is different but it was so fast to have 4 images mounted to stamp in one go!

Going old school...

So my monthly scrapbook recently requested a layout that was ‘camping’ or ‘outdoors’ in theme. Now, if you have been a stamper for a while (I started back in 2005!) you may have noticed that Stampin’ Up! only rarely offers camping themed stamp sets. I have always held onto these sets! They do not get added into my BOGO events as I can never predict when another one will be coming around. Sometimes it pays to be a hoarder! In fact, I have a pretty decent collection of stamp sets that I will never part with. Some for sentimental reasons and others for requests like this! I was able to successfully blend old, older and brand new (not even released yet!) items to create this page. I am so happy with how it turned out! I think my favourite aspect of this page, other than the bear, I mean, really? Could he be any CUTER! Are the wooden Tags & Feathers embellishments that will be releasing with the holiday catalogue. You can find them on pg 47. As well, take a peek at the little bugs scrambling along on the background too (can’t go camping with out bugs!). Hope you enjoy and are inspired to pull out some of your old and older stamp sets to play.

Classic Summer Fun!

Celebrating summer and my hubby in this layout! We really have been having the best summer together which began with a super fun, heartfelt and touching wedding of our friends The Wood’s! After that we started our adventure on the #besttripever so you will no doubt be seeing alot of those photos on upcoming scrapbook pages! On this page layout I wanted to combine both of the alphabet framelits that Stampin’ Up! is selling. I used soft fun colors and created the bubbly light feel of summer with light background stamping and embossed flowers that seemed to float on the page. I added some washi tape as well as I didn’t have the right yellow DSP I was looking for.

“Grow Old with Me the Best is Yet to be...”