Create with Connie & Mary--Thinking of Fall!

I will admit, as much as I don’t want it to be so, there is a little fall chill in the evening air! I am so blessed to live in a part of the world where we experience 4 distinct seasons. I love summer so much, but the beauty of fall is just spectacular here in Alberta. I love when all the leaves start to change and that is what influenced the design of my scrapbook page for this weeks theme—Thinking of Fall!

I love this photo of my two friends Donna and Karina. For the past several years we have worked together to offer 3 large group events each year called Creative Day Getaway, to local demonstrators and stampers. We are hosting our 20th event this September so I thought featuring them on this page was perfect!

I used a really fun and easy watercoloring technique to create these leaves! Something similar was shared on the Stampin’ Up! Instagram page recently as well. I love how our Stampin’ community shares and inspires each other!

I chose the colors Cajun Craze, Rich Razzleberry, Merry Merlot and Pumpkin Pie. You will need a piece of water color paper, the large Water Painter Brush (I used the same one moving from light ink to dark ink), a Stampin’ Spritzer and the Stitched Leaves Dies.

Start by spritzing the water color paper with water and starts adding in your color. It may look a little weird but after you spritzer it one more time at the end and either let dry or use your heat tool it blends all the colors together. Cut out your desired leaf shapes for your project.

I also wanted to play off of the grey tone in the Plaid Tidings DSP with the photo mat and some grey leaves. The photo mat has little leaves stamped on it in Smoky Slate ink to coordinate with the paper. The stamp set I used is Banner Year, don’t overlook it at the back of the Handmade for You catalogue! pg 65! It has tons of potential!

I used the old school Rock’n Roll technique on my grey leaves. Stamp them in Smoky Slate and then ‘roll’ the edges in Basic Grey Ink.

I also pulled in the large maple leaf image from the Gather Together stamp set for some background stamping. And I love the stitched look of the leaves so I decided to use the Hippo & Friends dies to cut out the sentiment with a stitched detail.

When I am creating scrapbook pages I find the magic is all in the details. Adding in different threads, textures, embellishments, layering stamps and colors. This little corner is a perfect example!

If you are in Canada and want to recreate this page you can order all the supplies from my online store! Just click below to head right there!

Thanks for hopping along with us this week as we are wrapping up August and heading into September. You can go back to see what Melissa has made if you are just joining in here or continuing hopping forward to see what Connie has designed! See you next week!

You're Amazing (heart)

Last week I shared an amazing double page layout featuring the Prized Peony suite and I am still having fun creating with it! This was the page my scrapbook class made this week. Once a week, last Wednesday of the month, I have a group of gals come to make a single page layout. They had requested doing some colouring with the Stampin’ Blends and I feel like this bundle just has so many options. Pairing it with the scripty soft font of the Ornate Thanks stamp set was a perfect match along with the Beautiful World stamp set.

I really love this soft color palette that was inspired by the Peony DSP and having my oldest son in the photo. I wanted this page to feel soft and masculine at same time. No one ever said you can’t use flowers with boys!

I started by embossing some of the mid sized peony blooms on the Whisper White background with white embossing powder. The effect is soft and subtle and draws your eye from the top of the page down.

Sometimes a background doesn’t need much, but I always find it needs something!

Embossing such an easy way to add detail to your projects.

I really love how the Prized Peony dies include outline dies, dies to make a 3 D flower and the scalloped embossed edge piece is perfection. I used it here to bring in that touch of blue with Seaside Spray. I feel this blue has a bit of a grey undertone so it worked perfectly on this project. I coloured the peonies in Seaside Spray, Petal Pink and Old Olive Stampin’ Blends.

I used the Grey Granite 1/4 shimmer ribbon and the Seaside Spray 1/4 metallic ribbon to draw interest and attention to the sentiment. I love our metallic pearls and they helped add an elegant feel to this page.

The lace detail is from the Fabulous Florals dies and worked so perfectly with this page!

I love this little corner at the right hand top of the page. I stamped the little background in Smoky Slate and cut one of the cute stitched shapes from the Hippo & Friends dies in the same color. I trimmed it down in half and added the small peony and You’re Amazing. Sometimes it really is all in the details!

I hope you love this page as much as I do! I absolutely LOVE to scrapbook and feel so blessed to have this platform to share my creations with you! Please feel free to shop with me or leave me a comment! I love to see them in my Inbox!

Prized Peony Perfection

Have you been stamping and creating with the Prized Peony Bundle? I actually love it as Peony’s are one of the few flowers I can actually keep alive from year to year, although I do wish they had a longer life span! I love how in the Peony die collection you get dies that cut out the stamped images and you get dies that cut out and layer together to create a beautiful peony flower. It is a really unique die set.

I recently created this page to share with my stampers at our monthly scrapbook group. If you live in the Edmonton area and are interested in scrapbooking, this is an example of what we make at each of our monthly meetings. Please reach out to me if you are interested. I would love to share my love of memory keeping with you!

I chose the colors for this page based on the colors in my sons tee shirts! This is all apart of my creative process as I do like things to have coordination and its often helps me get my color palette figured out.

If I could have one wish granted it would be that Stampin’ Up! would offer all of our amazing colors in 12x12 sheets. However, it is not the reality, but I did feel that a crisp white background would help the peonies pop off the page. I also knew that I wanted to use embossing paste on the background as it is a fun and easy technique. It is really easy to do in a class setting. I just have all of the participants do the embossing paste step one after another and then I rinse the stencil and palette knife in warm water when they are done. So don’t be afraid to try its with a group!

I used the Basic Patterns Decorative Mask with White embossing paste too create this subtle background. You can find both items and the Palette Knives on page 146 of the Annual Catalogue. If you look close you can see I also added in some of the Elegant Faceted Gems near the top of the page.

This page has quite an elegant feel to it which is kind of funny, as my kids were at our local zoo! This page would look amazing with wedding or anniversary photos too!

The Peony images are stamped in Moments Black Ink and coloured with the Old Olive, Calypso Coral and Balmy Blue Stampin’ Blends. The sentiments are stamped in Grey Granite ink on coordinating card stock and are cut with the Tasteful Labels dies and are from the Tasteful Touches stamp set. I think this whole bundle is a must have! I added a few pieces of the Peony Garden DSP to bring in that grey tone.

On each page I used two vertical 4x6 pictures that I butted up to each other, you could use one larger horizontal photo on the Balmy Blue photo mat as well. I like to give my group members options when selecting their photos. And my favourite die in the Peony set might be the long scallop border as its cuts and embosses and is just the perfect finishing piece.

If you would like any of the supplies to create this create this scrapbook page please click on the link below to shop with me in Canada!

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!