Around the World on Wednesday--Textures!

Welcome to another Around the World on Wednesday blog hop! These blog hops are a fantastic way for me to feel connected to those around me in the Stampin’ world because we have not had a very usual year. It would be easy to think of all the things we have missed out on, but I am choosing to focus on all the things that have actually been fantastic so far this year and this blog hop is one of them! From the stellar line up of stamping talent to the awesome and unique themes that Angie has developed for us, you are guaranteed to be inspired and feel connected to other stampers!

I wanted to create a scrapbook page that has a variety of texture on it and showcase some of the fun ways we can achieve it with our Stampin’ supplies.

My first idea was to create a custom stencil using our Window Sheets so I could use some embossing paste.

Well, seems that I didn’t have any Window Sheets! So I decided to use some retired Mercury Glass Acetate paper instead! Sometimes you have to be resourceful!

I used the circle dies and a small 3/4 circle punch to make this custom stencil. I placed it over top of my Whisper White 12x12 base and ran some Embossing Paste over top that I had mixed with a couple of drops of Calypso Coral Re-Inker.

When I was using the spatula to cover the circles I tried not to focus on getting the circles perfectly smooth. I thought that would also help created some texture on the page.

I tinted my embossing paste with re-inker and mixed it in an empty embellishment container! I never throw those containers away as I find I can always repurpose them for something!

I am in love with the color palette for my page today! I used Calypso Coral, Bumbleebee, Just Jade and Pool Party for this cozy page. I think these colors look so fantastic together no matter the time of year!

Another great way to showcase texture is to use our embossing folders. I chose to use the Winter Snow Embossing Folder and I wanted to add in some snowflake imagery to this page. I continued with that theme by using the So Many Snowflakes Dies. Both items are from the Snowflake Splendor Suite in the Handmade for You catalogue. The snowflakes and the sprig are cut from Shimmery White card stock to add a little dazzle.

You can find the sentiment “Eat, Drink and Be Cozy” in the Warm Hugs stamp set and the worlds cutest to go coffee cup is from the Press On stamp set.

The big white sprig is from the Beautiful Boughs dies in the main catalogue and is a carry over set from last holiday season.

I stamped the phrase “Its the Most Wonderful Time of Year” on Just Jade card stock and punched it with the Label Me Fancy punch and added some Gingham Bumblebee ribbon behind. Another way I created texture was by adding in some of the In Color Enamel dots in Just Jade and Bumblebee in select areas on the page.

I really hope you are inspired to pull out your embossing paste or add it to your next order! It is a really fun product to play around with an experiment! You can always shop with me if you are Canada! You can use the hostess code on my side bar or visit my online store!

Man's Best Friend

Recently a dear friend of mine lost her beloved dog after many years of being a beloved family member. She asked me to create a scrapbook page in his memory.

She asked me to use the Playing with Patterns Designer Series paper and the new Playful Pets stamp set. I decided to add in a retired set, Happy Tails, into the design too because it has some really special elements. I also borrowed the phrase “We’re the Best of friends” from the Bird Ballad stamp set.

I chose the color palette of Misty Moonlight, Seaside Spray, and Crushed Curry but you could easily reproduce this page with more feminine colors using the same 6x6 stack (Purple Posy and Calypso Coral).

I cut a large heart using the Stitched Be Mine dies to be the focal point of where Jake’s name was to go. This could also be customizable too. I added lots of stamped hearts and paw prints. This page is an eclectic mix of new products, older favourites and retired stamp sets. Some sets you just can’t part with!

A few different ribbons helped create this focal area. I used the Bumblebee Gingham ribbon, the blue from the Playing with Patterns Ribbon Combo pack and some silver twine I had laying around.

I really loved the sentiment “ A Best Friend” and it worked perfectly right above the Seaside Spray heart.

I actually loved how this turned out so much that I decided to turn it into a card too. Do you ever do that? I often do when I create something I love.

To create the card, I kept many of the same elements as the scrapbook page, but decided to stamp and color with Stampin’ Blends the cute dog from the Pampered Pets stamp set in Smoky Slate with a Crushed Curry collar to coordinate. I kept the ribbons and added in a couple embellshments from the Frosted & Clear Epoxy Droplets collection.

I hope both of these projects inspire you today and I am blessed my friend asked me to create such a meaningful memento.

Around the World on Wednesday--The World Around Us!

I really think this is a unique and interesting theme…the world around us! I mean one can go in so many directions. When I think of the world around me, I reflect on something that I do a lot of and I came up with drink lattes and take selfies :)

So I wanted to design a page that reflects my coffee loving selfies! I still have to print pictures, which I will admit is highly unusual for me. I almost always have my picture when I design a page!

When I think of coffee I think of brown tones so I started off with Early Espresso as my base for my photos and then I decided to add a girly feel by using Rococo Rose as my page base with accents of Pretty Peacock. Its sort of a unique color combo but I think it totally works with my coffee loving theme!

We have so many awesome stamp sets to support this super fun theme! I started with the Press On stamp set as the to go coffee cup is just the best and the coffee beans make terrific background filler.

Of course I had to use the little coffee cup from the Warm Hugs stamp set as a background accent too.

I chose fun and cheeky phrases to describe my love of a good latte!

If you take time to search through your stamp sets, you might be surprised in the different ways you use them. Take the “Lucky Me” sentiment, it is from the Game on stamp set. And really, sometimes I do feel that way about me coffee :)

I cut the word Coffee using the Playful Alphabet dies and beside its added the phrase “Life is better with you” from the Many Mates stamp set. Who else can relate to feeling this way about your morning coffee? Ha ha ha!

One of the key things I do when I am creating scrapbook pages is create little areas to convey the ‘theme’ of my page. I often say “its all in the details”! You can look at these spaces as little card fronts if you are starting to transition from card making to scrapbooking.

I added a circle of coordinating DSP, used a fun punch, plus a couple different embellishments.

The Nothings Better Than stamp set was another ‘must use’ stamp set in creating these fun pages. I had to stamp the ‘coffee’ stamp in the background!

I found the “I like you a latte’ in the Christmas set, Warm Hugs! And used the dies from the bundle to create a fun layer with some of the Faux Suede ribbon.

The Crumb Cake scallop border under the photo mat is from the Peony dies.

I just love this little corner! Because its true, ADULTING IS HARD! My kids have no idea how great they have it, hahaha!

I really hope you enjoyed my take on our theme, The World Around Us! I can’t to see what the other gals in the hop have created, so make sure you visit everyone and please feel free to leave a comment!

Tricia Butts from the United States is next up on the hop, click below to get to her creation!

Joy of Sets--Harvest Time!

Welcome to the Joy of Sets monthly blog hop! So happy to have you hopping along with us checking out all of our “Harvest Time” themed projects! This month I knew I wanted to create a scrapbook page. We have some beautiful wheat sheaves dies that I knew I wanted to incorporate.

I started with a base of Crushed Curry because I saw that color represented in the field in front of us and I accented our photo with Seaside Spray because I picked up that tone in the sky. While our outfits have grey, I also feel that Seaside Spray has a grey undertone to the blue. I don’t always match my pages to the colors in my photos but it worked out so beautifully this time.

This picture was taken about 4 years ago and my kids have just changed so much! I can hardly believe it and I am so thankful that I have made memory keeping a priority in my life.

I took the theme of “Harvest Time” literally as I added the word right into my main title. The term harvest immediately made me think of wheat sheaves and I wanted to highlight them on my page in the Crushed Curry and golden tones.

The Gather Together stamp set was a perfect fit for my design as it has a wheat sheaves image in the set and a cute little pumpkin.

The die cut wheat sheaves are from the Autumn Essentials dies. I have really gotten my value out of this die set. If you go back through some of my posts you will see how many times I have utilized it.

I cut the word “harvest” using the Playful Alphabet dies (another MUST HAVE) out of Soft Suede card stock and stamped them with the little collection of ‘spots’ that was also in the Gather Together stamp set. And of course I used the Foam Adhesive sheets with my letters. The word also pops because it is partially layered on a strip of DSP from the In Color 6x6 stack.

The log slice image is from the classic Rooted in Nature stamp set found in the annual catalogue. I cut it by hand. The words ‘happy’ and ‘blessings’ are from the Country Home stamp set, they are a part of single stamp that says “Happy Harvest Blessings”.

The pumpkin is stamped in Grey Granite and coloured with our water color pencils in Pumpkin Pie and Old Olive. I wanted the pumpkins to be subtle which is why I coloured them with the water color pencils.

My photo is also layered on a large piece of DSP from the Taste of Good DSP stack. I LOVE this paper, I would definitely recommend investing in it.

The sentiment “So glad to have you in my life” is from the Gather Together stamp set. I finished off the page with a few Gold Glitter Enamel Dots!

I really love how this page turned out. It has all the feels of fall and harvest and when I look at the photo I have so many wonderful memories of having these pictures taken with my In Laws. And I especially love my youngest sons hand on his chest as he had a piece of gum in his pocket he was allowed to have after the pictures. Haha. I love that he is making sure its still there!

I hope you enjoy all of the projects that everyone shares this month!

You can keep going NEXT to see the fabulous Angie Mackenzie!

Create with Connie and Mary--Fall Essentials!

Welcome friends! It is officially FALL and the most gorgeous season of all. While I LOVE summer, the sunshine and heat, bbq’s and all the fun stuff, I do truly love the beauty of fall. The changing colors of the leaves, the crispy touch to the air, pumpkins and sweater weather! And I find fall one of the greatest themes to design and stamp with. There are so many techniques to creating leaves and so many fantastic products to create amazing projects like this fall sampler!

Our blog hop theme this week is Fall Essentials—so creating a sampler was a great way to include many of my favourite fall things on one project!

Have you ever tried to create a sampler? There are so many possibilities! However, the easiest way to begin is to just use 3x3 squares and decorate them as you desire. It is like creating mini card fronts.

I started with a 12x12 base of Early Espresso and layered a piece of Whisper White over top. I used DSP from the Poinsettia …..and In Good Taste and then squares in many of our neutrals—Crumb Cake, Sahara Sand, Soft Suede, Early Espresso and some regals—Pumpkin Pie and Cajun Craze.

I leaned into two of my favourite fall stamp sets Love of Leaves and Gather Together. I stole the world ‘Autumn’ from the Autumn Greetings stamp set along with the cute little leaf clusters under the word FALL.

Here is a fun tip to try with the leaf dies from the Gathered Leaves dies. This dies cut and emboss at the same time so if you take the die and press it into your ink pad before placing it on your paper and running it through the Stamp Cut and Emboss Machine it will also transfer the ink onto the paper giving you leaf a really cool two tone effect!

I love how Stampin’ Up! has so many embellishments to choose from to help bring our projects to life. The Gold Hoops Embellishments are perfect to add a little flair. I loved adding a little gold bow onto the leaf above using the thread from the Forever Greenery Trim Combo Pack.

The Elegant Faceted Gems are the perfect touch to the square below with the pumpkins.

I really encourage you to give creating a Sampler a try. Its a wonderful way to showcase a lot of products and I love having one for every season to display in my craft room. They also make amazing gifts for those who love a handmade project.

I know the other girls have some amazing things to share with you! I can’t wait to see what their ‘autumn essentials’ are! You can visit Mellisa by going BACK and check out Connie by going NEXT.

Have a wonderful Saturday!