Be Inspired Blog Hop-Holiday Time!

/

Hi friends! Welcome to the Be Inspired Blog Hop! We have added some new members to our monthly Blog Hop and I am so excited! So make sure you go and visit all of the wonderful projects being shared and leave us some happy comments!

The theme for our Hop this month is HOLIDAY TIME and of course that meant that I had to share something Christmas related in the form of a scrapbook page. As much as I love to make cards, I really do love to scrapbook as my first passion.

When thinking of Christmas I was thinking of gift tags so I decided to make an oversized gift tag as a photo mat, and I am so happy with how it turned out!

I cut my standard 4 1/4 x 6 1/4 photo mat in Pebbled Path—this color choice was a direct result of the Joy of Christmas DSP—I LOVE this paper! I love the unconventional use of grey and brown tones in with classic Christmas colors.

I cut the tag portion of my photo mat after gluing the Pebbled Path layer to some Basic White. I added a scallop border to the bottom with Real Red and some Black & Very Vanilla Gingham ribbon to the top portion.

I used the Classic Christmas Dies to add in ‘ Season’s Greetings’, stamped in Pecan Pie ink. I used the large image from the Joy of Noel stamp set, to add some background stamping in Smoky Slate at is the base of my scrapbook layout.

I cut a variety of 2x2 squares of the Joy of Christmas DSP to add in a diamond format to the base of my page. This is such a good way to highlight and incorporate DSP into your page designs.

It also gave my another opportunity to add a sentiment and I decided to focus on ‘Christmas’ also stamped in Pecan Pie ink for continuity. Some greenery in behind in Shaded Spruce and Old Olive helps tie in the color scheme found in the DSP.

I used a little more gingham ribbon behind both sentiments as well so that everything feels connected on the page.

I love how this page is a mix of modern with the grey tones and traditional with the red and greens. Its one of my favorite scrapbook pages I have made lately and I can’t wait to add a holiday photo to it!

I am so excited to see what the rest of the Be Inspired Blog Hop team has created with our theme of ‘Holiday Time’!

You can get to Janneke’s project by clicking the link below!

If my project has inspired you, please consider shopping my online store! You can do so by clicking any image below!

Around the World on Wednesday--Let's Take a Walk

/

Hello friends! I have been a little bit absent from this Blog Hop but after meeting, in person, some of the other gals from ‘Around the World’ at our Backstage Leadership conference in Las Vegas, I have become motivated again!

The theme for this month is ‘Let’s Take a Walk’ which I found really intriguing! I immediately began to think of some of the places that I have been fortunate enough to walk in, and the most recent one was a trip to London that I took my youngest son, Shepard on this past spring.

Whenever I travel I like to snap pictures of our feet with cool things underneath and I decided to scrapbook two pictures from our recent trip together!

The first picture on the left side of my scrapbook page is taken just outside of the London Tower and the second is in the Notting Hill area (no I did not run into Julia Roberts or Hugh Grant, but wouldn’t that have been amazing?).

I started with a base 12x12 DSP from the Fresh as a Daisy collection. I love how this collection of DSP features all of the new In Colors. I added a layer of Copper Clay card stock over top and I did some background stamping using Quiet Meadow stamp set and a bit of flicking with my Copper Clay Stampin’ Blend.

Because I was creating this page solely for myself, not a class or scrapbook group meeting, I took liberty to use retired stamp set En Route. I love any of our stamp sets that have to do with travel or adventure. I rarely part with them and used it for the 2 sentiments on my page.

I though the sentiment “You’re Going Places” worked well with our theme of taking a walk—it probably is the most common way to get places isn’t it? I also find it intriguing to be in another county, one with so much history like Britain, and ponder the thought of how many people in the course of history have stood right here? Have walked this same path. It makes you feel very small in the scheme of things.

I love the dies from the Quiet Meadow and I hadn’t use them in a while so I decided to incorporate them into this layout. It was May when I visited so I few florals felt necessary with the moody colors of Copper Clay and Pebbled Path (the photo mat card stock color). These colors remind me of London, old brick and concrete and metal.

also…notice my fresh white shoes? they did not look like this at the end of this trip!

Now let me share a product you didn’t know you need—the Delightful Doilies Hybrid Embossing Folder and Die Bundle—particularly the DOILY DIE. Now who has been around long enough to remember when we sold doilies? I still have some. I greedily hoard them. I don’t need to anymore because now I can cut my OWN and make them ANY COLOR I want!

See, I told you!! You just discovered that you need this bundle!

It is so easy to color your Basic White card stock with our Blending Brushes. I trimmed the doily in half (why waste, you are only seeing a partial of it anyway) and I will keep the rest for another project.

I used one of my favorite punches of all time, the Washi label punch, for the sentiment “Adventure Awaits”…truly, it always does. Even in our every day lives! I added some of the Copper Clay twine that I unravelled and did a little spray of Smoky Slate marker over top of the sentiment.

I added a few Copper Clay embellishments and my page was complete. This actually didn’t take me too long to put together either! I hope this Blog Hop inspires you!

Thanks for stopping by today and make sure to go and visit all of the amazing designers from around the world on our hop! I am so excited to see how everyone thought of this challenge.

 

Next up on the Blog Hop is Tricia Butts in the United States!

Please feel free to leave me a comment, I would love to know what you think of my page!

Here are all the participants in our Blog Hop this month!

Jan Clothier - AU

Leonie Stuart - AU

Rochelle Laird-Smith - AU

Cheryll Miller - AU

Danielle Kassing - NL

Aurélie Fabre - FR

Mikaela Titheridge - UK

Annette Ball - CA

Angie McKenzie - US

Kelly Taranto - US

Shel Anderson - CA

Sharon Hashimoto Burkert - US

Chris Smith - US

Brenda Nelson - CA

Tricia Butts - US

Theresa McEntee - US

Bree Renwick - US

Lori Willcox - CA

Teri West - US


Creative Convention--Day 7!

/

Yay! A whole week of fun and inspiration! I have had an amazing time at Backstage being inspired myself so I wanted to inspire you as well! I hope you have enjoyed all of my posts so far and I have gotten you excited for the upcoming Holiday catalogue!

My last project had to be a scrapbook page, there was no way I could not share one as that is actually my passion. While I do enjoy making cards, I really LOVE making scrapbook pages!

I really wanted to use the new Festive Tags —kits are on sale this month, and I love how SU released a new kit and put it on sale for us! Isn’t that amazing? I always love our tag kits as I find them to be extremely valuable in content and a total time saver when the holidays get busy!

I thought these tags would look awesome as a banner on a scrapbook page and I was right! I was so easily able to bring my vision to life with this tag kit. I love the color palette of the kit—Lost Lagoon, Pool Party, Sweet Sorbet, Flirty Flamingo with gold accents!

I also printed my christmas picture in black & white—the reason is that I find holiday photos almost overwhelming with all the color and it sometimes competes with the colors in your scrapbook page, so this is an easy solve—print in black & white so it is a neutral canvas!

There is only one things stamped on this page because I could not resist this sentiment. I was absolutely perfect for this page! You can find ‘Christmas is better Together’ in the Beary Cute stamp set. I love it so much!

I also decided that my Pool Party background needed a little something and since I had already added polka dot Pool Party DSP (from the 6x6 Subtles paper collection) to my page I decided to continue that theme. The easiest way to add polka dots is with a finger dauber! It is the ideal size as the scale works perfectly on scrapbook pages and cards.

Not only does this kit have adorable tags but it also has cut things like snowmen, trees, ornaments and a whole bunch of holiday words that are STICKERS! Yes, this actually a stamp free kit!

I miss these little kids—this was christmas eve 2012! They say the days are long but the years are fast and it is so true!

I really hope this scrapbook page encourages you to look at our Kits as a whole in a new way. I often find I can use the elements to create completely different projects than intended!

Thank you so much for being a part of my “Creative Convention”—please feel free to shop with me if you do not have a demonstrator. I love what I do and your support allows me to keep doing it!

And if you missed yesterday’s post, please go back and take a look and consider joining me and Tricia for the Joy of Christmas Stamp Camp on October 21st on Zoom! We would love to spend the day stamping with you!

Color Fusers--April 2023

/

Hello April…I am so happy you are here as it is finally beginning to feel like spring! Our Color Fusers Hop this month is featuring one retiring color, Polished Pink, and two continuing colors—Coastal Cabana and Gorgeous Grape. Now I won’t lie…Gorgeous Grape is a fun color but not one that I reach for alot, so it was fun to incorporate it into my design!

I decided to use a bundle and a single stamp set that are being carried forward into our new Annual Catalogue that is officially live in May. I chose the Quiet Meadow Bundle and the Good Feelings Stamp set. I feel that using the Quiet Meadow Bundle with this bright color combo has breathed some new life into it. And I forgot how amazing these dies are, I am so glad I dusted them off!

I started with a 12x12 base of Basic White to help settle these bright colors down a bit. I added a 3x12 strip of Coastal Cabana DSP to the left edge and I found it in the recent Sale a bration paper stack Dandy Designs. I then used a smaller 1 inch strip of Polished Pink DSP from the In Color 6x6 stack and hid the seam of the two pieces behind my photo mat.

I blended a large area on my page base with my Blending Brush and Coastal Cabana ink pad and added some stamping from the Quiet Meadow stamp set. The set includes some distressed words and spots so I added them on top of my blending.

TOP TIP: Make sure to stamp images off on your Stampin’ placemat to get lighter and different tones

You can see how easy it is to create a custom background for your scrapbook page by layering ink and stamps!

I cut a variety of the wildflowers from the Meadow Dies in the three focus colors and layered them behind the sentiment “You’re on my Mind and in my Heart”. What I love about the Good Feelings stamp set is how big the sentiments are. Perfect for memory keeping!

And if you don’t recognize the die the sentiment is on, it can be found in the Online Exclusive section of the Stampin’ Up! website or my store. The Polished Pink and Coastal Cabana heart are also from this same die set—Radiating Stitches. I also had some Glossy Dots in my stash and they were perfect for this page along with some retired Gorgeous Grape ribbon. #useyourstash

I decided to carry some of the ribbon, wildflowers and the heart over to the top left of my page as well so that the opposing corners of my layout felt connected.

Honestly, this page came together pretty fast and it will definitely brighten up my craft room! I can’t wait to see what the rest of the Color Fusers Blog Hop has created this month!

You can check out what the awesome Bonnie O’Neill has created and make sure you visit everyone to get some inspiration on how you can use up your Polished Pink supplies!

If you would rather go backwards you can do that as well by hitting the Previous tab as it will take you to my fabulous friend Melanie Hockin!

Thank you so much for coming by and checking out all of our projects. It has been a while since I have shared a card as you know I love to scrapbook so I appreciate you letting me showcase my passion, even if you are more of a card lover! Luckily the other members of the hop typically make cards so you will always have inspiration!

Color Fusers--March 2023

/

Hello friends—welcome to the Color Fusers Blog Hop! I am so excited about this month as I absolutely LOVE this color combo that we are creating with this month—Blushing Bride, Mint Macaron and Soft Seafoam!

I love the soft feel of these colors—they feel like spring and Easter and I thought they were absolutely perfect for a scrapbook page featuring one of our new Online Exclusive stamp sets—Irresistible Blooms.

The base of my page is Blushing Bride and then I layered Basic White on top. I anchored most of the design on the top right of the page for something that feels a bit different but you could easily center everything in the middle of the page if you prefer that look.

I used a 6x6 piece of Mint Macaron DSP from the Country Gingham collection to act as my large photo mat and to ground the picture. I decided to add gold accents to my design so along with a Mint Macaron photo mat, I added a layer of the Fine Shimmer Paper. If you have not ordered this paper yet—you NEED to #addtocart! Its absolutely AMAZING!

 

I knew I wanted to use the new Irresistible Blooms bundle on my page so I decided to stamp the 2 blooms from the stamp set with Whisper White ink and embossing powder. I then used my Blending Brushes to add Blushing Bride ink to the flowers for an emboss resist technique.

I did the same technique with the leaves using both Soft Seafoam and Mint Macaron.

I also pulled out an old favorite die, Scallop Contours, for the amazing stitched scallop border die. I thought it was a the perfect accent piece to run underneath the DSP layer.

 

You can actually create quite a bit of depth and tones of ink by just using an ink pad and Blending Brush!

One of the best parts of the Irresistible Blooms dies is the dotted circle wreath (for a lack of what else to call this). When you die cut it on a square of paper it is actually still connected to the paper, but with a few snips with my Paper Snips I was able to free it to add a really fun wreath accent to my design. For my page, I wanted this to blend softly into the design so I decided to cut it out with Vellum.

This picture was taken when me and the kids went to see Reese play in a soccer tournament. These moments together are even more special since he went away to school 8 hours away.

There are two sentiments on my page—one is from Irresistible Blooms—I Like You and the other is from Happy Labels and I added some Gold Shimmer Ribbon underneath. The sequins are the Pastel Adhesive Backed Sequins and have been one of my favorite embellishments from the Occasions Catalogue.

I hope this project inspires you to create something amazing with this color palette! I can’t wait to see what the rest of the Color Fusers team has created this month. I am always inspired by them!

Next up on the Hop is Bonnie O’Neill— I know she has something amazing to share! You can go all the way through by visiting Bonnie next or go in reverse by clicking on Previous. This will take you to the talented Sue Vine!

If my scrapbook page has inspired you to #addtocart you can click on any image to shop my online store. Thank you in advance!