Create with Connie and Mary--Back to School!

Typically around this time of year I find myself thinking, wow, its time to start getting ready for school to start! And then I procrastinate on actually buying school supplies and getting anything organized. I mean, it’s not like my kids are even thinking about back to school, they are in summer mode. Even though its been a 5 month summer because of Covid!

So I was excited when this week’s theme was shared as ‘Back to School’ as putting my project together helped remind me I really need to get organized this year! I knew that I had some pictures of my kids that I had not scrapbooked yet as I never follow any kind of order when I decide what pictures to use. I am however, someone that regularly prints pictures—I have bins and bins of them that I have somewhat categorized and labelled. I am someone that almost always needs a photo to get my creative juices going!

The Harvest Hellos and Apple Builder punch were my go to craft supplies to create this page! I have no idea why apples feel like back to school but they just do! I also knew that I wanted to incorporate the Plaid Tidings DSP as well as plaid feels like fall to me too.

This page actually didn’t require too many supplies like some of my scrapbook pages! I kept all of the phrases from the Bundle which I do find helps my stampin’ customers feel inspired to make a purchase, knowing they can make a page with one stamp set.

I coloured the apples in with my Stampin’ Blends using the Poppy Parade and Granny Apple Green. I also decided to use one of the gold hoops to create a little focal area on the left of the page. Because I was using three pictures, I made sure that each picture had a ‘phrase’ attached to it as well to help draw the eye across each photo. And a little background stampin’ and maker flicking helped fill in the right side of the page!

I added a little extra greenery from the Forever Fern bundle on the hoop and a little bit of Real Red ribbon

Thanks for hoping along with all of us again this week! And if you are new to our blog hop, we share a project every Saturday! So mark us on your calendar!

You can click BACK to see what Melissa has created and NEXT to see what Connie has crafted for us! She mentioned she was really excited about her project this week so I can’t wait to see it myself!

Create with Connie and Mary--Hot Summer Days!

When I think of “Hot Summer Days” I definitely think of ice cream! I hope you enjoying this weeks Create with Connie and Mary Blog Hop theme! Make sure you visit everyone on the Hop!

We have been having some super hot days here in Alberta and I am LOVING every minute of it! And summer ice cream calories don’t count I have decided!

Have you been following along with my blog regularly? Are you noticing a trend…maybe with the Playing with Patterns Suite? Hahaha, I don’t even notice I am using it half the time! It just seems to work with EVERYTHING! Hopefully I have you hooked on it too and you can use my August Host Code to shop for anything you need!

What is unique about this page, is all of the DSP strips of paper are actually from 6x6 DSP stacks! You would never know though as I strategically hid the seams behind the photos. I used the Playing With Patterns, In Color, Whale of a Time and Flowers for Every Season 6x6 collections. I used my finger nail to soften the edges of the DSP to give it some added texture when I added it to the 12 x 12 Whisper White.

I used a trusty old favourite, the baby wipe technique, to create this soft background. I then used my Water Painter to flick the Coastal Cabana ink all over.

I don’t know how you feel about ice cream but I think the sentiments on this page describe my feelings for it perfectly! Hahaha! And my sons expression on his triple scoop ice cream cone is just priceless!

I used a bunch of different sentiments from three different stamp sets to enhance this page. I used Nothings Better Than, Blossoms in Bloom, and Bloom and Grow. And of course, the Playful Alphabet dies!

I hope you enjoy what the other gals have created this week for you and I hope you are having an awesome summer yourself! You can go back to see what Melissa has created and next to see what Connie has designed!

Create with Connie and Mary! Ombre Style!

One of the things I like to do when we get a batch of new In Colors is pair them up in an Ombre style to see how they work with our existing colors. I created FIVE layouts that feature each new In Color with color strips. This is the easiest way to showcase these colors in an ombre fashion. And while these are scrapbook pages, you can easily use the same method to create a card! This weeks Create with Connie and Mary challenge was OMBRE so these page designs worked out perfectly!

All of these pages are created using 5 colors, the All Things Fabulous Bundle, Water Painters, a Stamp-a-ratus and the Playful Alphabet dies with the Foam Adhesive Sheets.

This first page features the following colors: Night of Navy, Misty Moonlight, Pacific Point, Seaside Spray and Balmy Blue.

The flowers are stamped using the All Things Fabulous stamp set with the aid of my Stamp-a-ratus and 3 ink colors. I used Seaside Spray, Balmy Blue and Misty Moonlight in that order.

I used the smallest brush tip of the new Water Painters to flick a spray of Misty Moonlight ink over the page and repeated this technique on each page with the coordinating In Color.

I love how bright and fun this page and how my lululemon sweatshirt coordinates! In fact that is a theme in ALL OF MY PAGES :).

This page features Magenta Madness and the colors Poppy Parade, Melon Mambo, Rococco Rose and Blushing Bride. The flowers are stamped in Blushing Bride, Rococco Rose and Magenta Madness in that order. I love having the ability to create my own fun titles using the Playful Alphabet dies and the Foam Adhesive Sheets. No one else is going to scrapbook me, so I have to keep my own memories!

I love this ombre green combo! I used Bermuda Bay, Coastal Cabana, Just Jade, Mint Macaroon, and Pool Party and the flowers are stamped in Pool Party, Mint Macaroon, and Just Jade in that order.

Look! Another coordinating outfit! Haha! I had so much fun finding pictures and creating these pages to have on display in my craft room. This page features Early Espresso, Soft Suede, Cinnamon Cider, Crumb Cake and Sahara Sand. The colors are stamped in Crumb Cake, Cinnamon Cider and Soft Suede in that order.

You may also notice that there are two ribbons on each of my pages! It was so easy to find coordinating ribbons as there are so many fabulous options in our new catalogue.

I saved my favourite for last. Even my kids had a good laugh over my title! This page features the ‘yellows’ and starts with Mango Melody, Crushed Curry, Bumblebee, Daffodil Delight and So Saffron. The flowers are stamped in So Saffron, Daffodil Delight and Bumbleebee in that order.

I hope these pages have inspired you to play around with our color families to create your own ombre looks!

Go Back to visit Melissa and Next to see Connie’s creation!

Around the World with the NEW Catalogue!

This might be the most exciting Around the World on Wednesday blog hop in 2020 as we are all featuring things from the brand new catalogue! Its like an early Christmas! The suite that I was the most excited about was the Playing with Patterns suite on page 100. I absolutely loved the color pallet and after playing around with the Playing with Patterns Designer Series Paper I might go on record and saying is my favourite DSP of all time. That is quite the commitment but to me it is perfection!

I knew right away I wanted to create a scrapbook page layout with this suite adding in a few other stamp sets I was excited about. I love a good floral set and I was drawn to the images and sentiments of this new bundle, All Things Fabulous on page 121.

And look at my subject matter! Could he be even cuter? Hawkins has been my faithful companion and my best buddy during the past few months. As soon as I saw the Pallet Thoughts stamp set with “Hello, Handsome” I knew it would be the perfect set to use when scrapbooking my dog, sons or husband! And I love the distressed wood stamp in this set as well. It is the perfect layering piece!

The whole page is designed around the colors of the Playing with Patterns suite—Purple Posy, Night of Navy (however, I substituted our new In Color Misty Moonlight), Coastal Cabana (my favourite color of all time), Crushed Curry (once again I substituted Bumblebee), and Calypso Coral.

I really love the flowers on this page combined with the soft colors. The enamel dots are an awesome finishing touch that helps add dimension to the page. I like my pages to have lots of layers and textures. I used the largest Water Painter brush to swipe over top of the Bumblebee flowers right after I stamped them. I did the same thing on the barn wood piece to soften things a bit and spread out the color slightly. I also stamped the flowers multiple times to give a gradient look to them as well. That is one of the easiest ways to create different colours. Ink once and stamp repeatedly!

I was so excited and inspired by this page layout that I took all of the same elements to create this adorable mini album. I used photos of our ‘quarantine times at home’ as my subject matter. Ridiculously Awesome is a new mlllion dollar achiever set co-designed by Ronda Wade with artwork contributed by Sean Douglass. I LOVE the oversized fonts which makes this a dream set for memory keeping!

For the album shown below, I used all of the same products (minus the flowers) to create this project. I also added in the stamp set A Grand Kid. I love the phrases in it and can see myself using it a lot even though I don’t have ‘grand kids’. Its definitely not a set to be overlooked because of the title.

Click through these photos to see some different views of this fun mini album :)

The next stop on our awesome blog hop of 24 participants is Cindy Schuster from Nutmeg creations! Cindy works at Stampin’ Up! and is one of the amazing co-founders of Stampin’ Through the Catalogue. You can follow them on the Gram @stampinthroughthecatalog

Create with Connie and Mary--Its a Masculine...

The theme for the first Saturday is June is Masculine! I really wanted to create a scrapbook page as I was really focused on cards for May. I shared a different card each month for the month of May. So if you are new here today, feel free to spend some time going through my posts and hopefully feel inspired!

This masculine page features my youngest son and husband and is a mix of NEW and current products. I pulled out my Geared Up Garage bundle and paired it with our new blue—Misty Moonlight! The oil splats are stamped in Versamark and embossed in clear embossing powder. Its a great solve for not having my new Misty Moonlight ink pad yet. I added in a Night of Navy photo mat to compliment the blue background and used the Denim Ribbon to add another blue tone and texture. My favourite part of the layout is probably the amazing DSP background. This is from the In Good Taste DSP stack and it looks like thick white paint on a canvas with a blue tint. I added in a 1 1/4 strip of In Color DSP in the woodgrain pattern on the left side. I LOVE this pattern option in the 6x6 stacks.

To add a bit of extra texture or grunge to the gears I swiped my Basic Grey ink pad over top of Smoky Slate card stock. I then cut the large gear die out of this piece.

It you want to order any of these amazing projects, please use my monthly hostess code and shop my store!

The large gears are cut out with the ink pad swipe method and the small gears have the Basic Grey marker flicked over top.