Layout of the week!

What a surprise I had when I dropped into Swirlydoo this evening and realized that my layout, Sisters was chosen layout of the week! That is such an honor! They have so many talented ladies there. I feel blessed to have found this scrapbooking forum, whose style of scrapping is similar to my own. It makes you feel more like one of the family who understand you and your creativity! Thank you Swirlydoo and family for welcoming me into your scrap-family!

I love sketches!

as I was roaming the internet last week I came upon a sketch artist who was new to me. Her name is Beggahunna, and I am in total awe of her talent! Just click on her name and check out her site, and you will see what I mean! I have used one of her sketches for the layout I am about to share with you.

Sisters

I started with these sweet photos of my niece's 2 daughters. She loves taking pictures of her girls, and I am sure you can see why! They are adorable! As soon as I saw the pictures I knew I just had to scrap them! The sketch was perfect for these photos.

I took a plain white sheet of cardstock and tried a *new to me* product called Smooch Spritz in Pink Sprinkles and sprayed it in the upper corners of the paper. It sure is some sweet stuff! I got out my stash of Basic Grey papers and chose to use papers from their Bittersweet line, as the colors went really good with Austin's sweater.


I used a mixture of Prima flowers that I had won from MCS and some I had bought, then I inked them with a burgandy ink to give them more depth and added some cute brads that I had in my stash. I used my EK Success Retro Flower punch to make the light pink flowers and used a darker pink pearl for the centers.

My Gypsy/Cricut played its part in the making of this layout, and I used Lyrical Letters for the title and the vine/leaves at the bottom of the layout. I used Home Decor to cut out the fabulous brown flourishes, and Ashlyn's Alphatbet to cut out the leaves. I had cut them out in white cardstock and used w 2 different shades of green to bring them to life.

I love using large circle/rings in my layouts, but until now have not been successful in being able to find one that cut thin enough for my liking. I decided to try something with my Gypsy/Cricut that I had done before, and that was to combine 2 circles from different carts and place on inside the other to make a thin ring. I tried it with my Home Accents and Plantin Schoolbook carts and gave it a try. Sure enough it worked! I was one happy Scrapper! This doesn't work with every combination of carts, it all depends on how the person who designed the cart sets things up. I hit it lucky the first try!
I found some crystal flourishes awhile back at Dollarama,[I know! I was surprised too!] and bought a bunch. I cut them up to suit my needs and added them to the layout. One the mats around the pictures I used my white Souffle pen to make dots around it, and used the pen also on the light pink flowers.

To ink the edges of my papers I used my Distress Inks by Ranger, in Aged Mahogany and Vintage Photo. The pink floral ribbon I used I bought at our local thrift store.
Thanks for looking at my layout! I hope to bring you more goodness from Beggahuna's sketches!

On line crop at LIITD!

Feel the Love. That was the theme of Sundays on line crop at Love is in the Details
With all the different challenges there were, there is lots of reasons to feel the love! We have till Feb 28th at 8 pm to upload our layouts! Thats feelin' the LOVE!!
I didn't get to partake in the chitchat that was going on, as we had a wedding to attend, but I did get started on one, and finished off the finishing touches later Sunday night. Here it is!

Eyes to die for

This l/o is for Melissa's Love you SEW much challenge!

This is my sweet son Jordan at the age of 3. He had[still does] such beautiful blue eyes and the longest eyelashes any woman would die for! So how fair is that? Since they are on my son, I've enjoyed looking at them for many years. :)

For the background and the circle, I used My Minds Eye pattern paper. The blocks of paper and the border were made from Basic Grey Recess line. I loved how the 2 line went so well together. I distressed all the papers and inked them all with Ranger Distress Ink Vintage Photo. I got the idea from Megan at Above Ruby Studio
to used a foam brush to apply the ink so I can control it better and get a more blended look. I like it that I can have the edges more intense, and getting softer as I move into the paper. I used my Gypsy/Cricut to cut out the circle, dandelions and the border. The carts I used were the Gypsy Wanderings and Home Accents




For the "sewing" part, I faux stitched the edges of the circle and the pp on the left side in brown, and the pp on the right, I used my white Souffle pen. On the edge of the matting on the photo I used my blue Souffle pen to put dots around it. I bought these cute bronzed pearls at Dollarama and used them as accent points in the Argyle border, and then I outline the border with my brown pen to hlep make it pop.
I had cut the dandelions out in white cardstock but decided to ink them with a brown ink. On the ends I used Rangers Distress Stickles in Picket Fence. I used Doodlebug Designs Candy Shoppe Alphas, but inked them a bit to tone down the intensity.


I love my punches! I used my EK Success Swiss Cheese punch down the edge of the paper on the left side. Then, I took my Turquoise Stickles and filled in the circles!
The journalling reads " Why is it that the boys are the ones to get the big blue eyes and the long curled lashes?" Thank you for taking time out of your busy day to share my love of scrapbooking with me!

Ready for some eye candy?

I have been a naughty girl and haven't up dated my blog with recent Layouts for TOO long! I hope what I have to show you will make up for it!

Puppy Love

I've really been enjoying scrapping these photo's of myself as a young child! I did this layout for Feb Scrap your Stash challenge at LIITD.
Now that I have been scrapbooking for 1 1/2 yrs, I actually have a stash to use up! First off, I used a sketch made by Irene Tan, aka, Scrapperlicious . This woman has amazing talent! If you don't know of her and are not familiar with her work, please click on her name and find out what you have been missing!

I used a mixture of different designers' papers. Basic Grey, Fancy Pants, My Mind's Eye. Its fun to see what you can all make go together and look good.
The Cartridges I used with my Gypsy/Cricut, are Gypsy Wanderings,to cut out the flower and its shadow, Plantin SchoolBook,for the word puppy and Ashlyn's Alphabet for the word love.

I was very excited to finally get my Martha Steward *Punch around the page* Loopy! I used it on the bottom of the flowered square. I also used my MS border punch Doily Lace and MS Arches to make the 2 strips of faux crisscross stitching.
The swirly vine is from Niklindesigns1225 and I inked it with different shades of green and some brown. The small flower in the middle of the vine was made with the cutouts of the 2 larger flowers. I scrunched up the flowers to give them "life" and then added Ranger Distress Stickles in Rock Candy in the center of each petal.
I did some handstitching on the right side of my photo with brown embroidery floss and used my Crop a dile to make the holes in the photo. I used Distress stickles in Peeled Paint on the round ends of the vine .


I put white dots with my souffle pen on the word puppy, and on the tips of the flowers. Pink Stickles made their debut on Love, and 4 sweet kraft butterflies fluttered about thanks to my MS butterfly punch! Every edge was inked/or distressed and lots of faux stitching and doodling!

Thanks for taking this walk with me back into my childhood memories!


Bloom

I scraplifted this design from BoBunny's layout debuting their new collection Persuasion, and used it in the Janurary Circle Challenge at MCS.
I used a Kraft cardstock background, and unfortunately I didn't write down the names of the 2 dotted papers! My bad! I used Fancy Pants Sweet Spring for the pp strip at the bottom of the photo. By the way, this darling little girl is one of my Great Nieces' standing in her Grandma's flowers!

I used pink card stock to mat the large piece of ppand to make the scalloped border. Java card stock to mat the photo and the swirls, small frame and the title, and Swiss Dot white cardstock for the think border above the scalloped one. I used a pink Souffle pen to show off the dots.
The cartridges I used with my Gypsy/Cricut were, Gypsy Wanderings: dragonfly and large flower, Ashlyn's Alphabet: small frame and swirls and title, Plantin SchoolBook: scalloped border. I used Distress Stickles in Rock Candy on the dragonfly. I love the way the Rock Candy gives a unique texture with a bit of glitter to it. I used my white Souffle pen to embellish the borders with dots and pink for the swirl by the small frame tag.

For the center of the flower, I used my Cuttlebug and embossing folder for the dots and then used a few different inks to highlight the high points. For the flower in the title I used a pink glitter that comes in a long tube. Can't remember the name!
On the frame tag I used Kiasercraft Mini Alpha Stickers in Chocolate and White. The chipboard flower is a Sassafras bloom. I love the bit of charm it gives the layout. The frame tag is raised up by some PopDots. I did a bunch of faux stitching and doodling.

Thank you for meeting my Great Niece and her love for gardening!



Beary Sweet

This will always be one of my favorite photo's of my son! My daughter, Jerica took this picture with her new camera we gave her for her 18th birthday. Jordan is hugging the teddy bear that Jerica's boyfriend gave her for her birthday as well. It is just so irresistibly cute!

I started of by cutting an irregular scalloped edge around the Kraft cardstock , inking its edges and the rolling up the edges with my fingers. I then matted it on brown cardstock. I distressed and inked the photo, matted it on Java cardstock, cut out in a postage stamp shape , with my Gypsy/Cricut and my Gypsy Wandering Cartridge. I didn't want the layout to look too girly so I took some corrugated cardboard behind the matted photo. The pattern paper I used is by Basic Grey, The pink paper[Bittersweet] that has the irregular scallops was cut on the Cricut. I then spritzed it with a bit of water and then crumpled it up to distress it, and then took a warm dry iron to flatten it out. It really helped age the paper. 

Lets talk about hearts! There are alot of them! I used Most of my cartridges to get the variety that I have here! Gypsy Wanderings, Gypsy Font, Lyrical Letters, Plantin Schoolbook, Ashlyn's Alphabet.The BG paper I used for them was Cordovan from the Indian Summer line. Each heart was inked along the edges

The title was made from a combination of fonts from my Gypsy/Cricut, Plantin Schoolbook, and Lyrical letters. I heat embossed the word Beary and the W from sweet with Rangers Distressing Powder Walnut Stain. For the rest of the word sweet I used pink Stickles. I used a popdot under the heart that the title sits on.
The letters I used for the sub title are by Kaiser Craft tiny alpha stickers in chocolate and white. I used my white Souffle pen to put dots on the frame around the photo and to make the squiggly line on the Java frame behind the Kraft cardstock, also around the title to give it some more punch.

I used a brown gel pen to outline all of the hearts for more definition and then I took some dark brown acrylic paint, covered up the photo, and splattered the paint all over the layout. The brown flourish is from Niklindesigns1225.
Thank you for looking ! Hope you enjoyed it!

Its LOVE month at LIITD!