Back to School (gulp!)

Isn't this absolutely adorable? I saw this mini backpack at my upline Ange's house, and knew I needed to case it for back to school. I'm a teacher and back at work on Tuesday after 14 months off for maternity leave. I used Pink Pirouette cardstock and Sweet Always DSP. The ribbon is from Michaels and the brads are from Dollarama. But I'm going through my crafting room and taking most of my non-SU supplies to school. Next week I get a group of Grade 4's for the week. You see, in Vancouver, the school population can be a bit transient, so we need a few days to make sure that certain kids haven't moved out of our school boundaries. And the number of teachers, and classes, is dependent on the number of kids that show up in September. Anyway, although I am going back to my Grade 2 position, I need to plan for a week with Grade 4's. I thought we'd try to make these adorable backpacks, and hopefully display them in the display case in front of the office.

Happy Birthday Mom!

We had a birthday dinner for my Mom tonight. And we decided to finally introduce her to modern technology, so my brother and I bought her a cell-phone. The package it came in fit nicely into the plain white gift bags from SU. So I decided to decorate it in blue as that's my Mom's favourite colour. Besides, I had made her a card out of soft sky and blue bayou paper, therefore I wanted to decorate a gift bag from matching paper, so I chose the Porcelain Prints DSP. I forgot to get a photo of the card, so I'll try to remember to take my camera over to Mom's and post a photo of it soon. Anyway, this was super easy and the ribbon is navy blue left over from Heather's bridesmaid dresses, but it covers up a multitude of flaws.

Happy First Birthday Teagan

Last week was Teagan's first birthday. The photo doesn't do this justice but I love this little 8x8 scrapbook page (another for my shadowboxes) The colours used here are Groovy Guava, So Safron, River Rock and Chocolate chip. This page started out using paper from the Simply Scrappin' Special Delivery Girl (retired) and then evolved into quite a complicated affair. I printed out the pictures and then sized the little ones to fit in the rectangular frame sticker. Then I decided to add some interest by using a band of colour from the reverse side of this paper. Then I decided it needed some birthday decor. So I stamped the balloons, cake, and gifts with the stampset Birthday Whimsy. I then popped them up with Stampin' Dimensionals. The Happy Birthday sentiment is from the new set Four Square and the It's a Big World is from the Sweet Thing set which coordinates with this Simply Scrappin' Kit

Live With Passion - gift bag

This interesting little gift bag is simply a white plain gift bag, with one side decorated. First you stamp the grass in VersaMark. The flowers are stamped in White Craft ink. The top part has Tangerine Tango DSP glue on it, and then it's wrapped up with So Saffron poly twill ribbon. The card is made from Whisper White cardstock and then stamped with the sentiment live with passion. All the stamps are from the Inspired by Nature stampset and the orange cardstock is Tangerine Tango.

Halloween Treat Box

This is a cute little box made to keep treats in. It's also great for "wrapping" up gift cards. This one is was shown to me by my fabulous upline Ange - her blog Northshore Stamper has directions on it. We used Pumpkin Pie paper and the Arachnophobia standard wheel with Basic Black ink. The sentiment was from the House of Haunts stamp set. The two sizes of oval punches were used to punch out the sentiment and mount it. Then basic Black grosgrain (1/4") was used to tie it all together. Super easy, and super cute. I can't wait to figure out a time to use this little wrap.

COASTER ALBUM

I am soooooooo proud of this little album. I actually came up with this project by myself. I used techniques that I have learned from various tutorials from Splitcoast.
I would love to teach this in a workshop, so let me know if you are interested. I used last year's In Colours and Porcelain Prints paper and Live Your Dream stampset. I will make another one with my new paper when it arrives from Stampin' Up! It's super super easy to make. The covers are made from drink coasters and the whole mini album is 4 inches square.

Flip Flop Album

This is a cute little project I learned how to make by buying a kit from Scrap Arts in North Vancouver. I made this one using my old cardstock and DSP and my plan is to make one with Simply Scrappin' Kit sometime soon. It's super easy to make and great for gifts to Grandparents and other relatives. I'll probably offer a class on how to make this sometime soon too.

CD album cover

This is a very cute project. I first learned about it by taking a class from Alison Solven who is an Independent Stampin' Up! demonstrator. You can find her blog in my list of Blogs I Love. This is a little album that has a pocket to hold a CD. It's perfect for your photos on CD. The one I did with Alison (pictured above) I use to hold a CD of my wedding photos.

Anyway The one I made, titled Baby Boy, above, I made to give as a new baby gift. I would love to try it with some Stampin' Up! paper, but this one is made from paper and stickers from SEI.

If anyone is interested in a class on how to make them I can certainly do that with Stampin' Up! products.

LOVE Glitter Ritz

For those of you who haven't experienced Crystal Glitter Ritz or Burnished Velvet Glitter, here's an example. This picture doesn't do it justice. This product is developed by some local Vancouver women. I first heard of this product at Scrap Arts in North Vancouver. The way you use this product is to use double sided tape. I have used Sookwang double sided tape. This is the 65mm wide tape. You put the tape down on your product and then peel back the backing. I then took the backing and put it through my cuttlebug. The die I used has 4 flowers in a row. Then you carefully put the backing back on and peel off the areas you want to apply glitter to. You only remove the parts that you want to use the same colours on at the same time. It's super easy and it looks great. This card was made for Thank You's for Teagan's first birthday party last weekend. I'm trying to use up my non-Stampin' Up paper as my shipment is arriving on friday - I can't wait. The sentiment was stamped in purple VersaMark and then punched out with the a 1/4 inch circle punch from Stampin Up! I used the sentiment from the Seeing Spots stamp set. I applied glue from my two way glue pen and then applied Stampin' Up!'s Dazzling Diamonds glitter to it. I then punched a hole with my Crop-o-dile and used a rhinestone brad in the centre. Then it was popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals.

Connor's 2nd birthday

This was the invite to Connor's 2nd birthday. I really love this card. Mostly because Stampin' Up! has amazing paper. The Stampin' Up! colours are Bashful Blue and Chocolate Chip. Anyway I made the pocket out of Bashful Blue textured cardstock. I used snail to glue the pocket sides and then put black eyelets in the top corners to secure the pocket. I used my 1 3/8 circle punch to puch out the half circle at the top. Both stamps on the front were from Michael's $1.50 bin. I stamped the birthday image with black Staz On and then used my Aqua painter and ink to "paint" in the candles. I used Bashful Blue DSP for the bottom of the front, and seeing as I didn't have any Chocolate Chip ribbon, I wrapped the card in a strip of Chocolate Chip cardstock. The insert was printed out on my computer and then glued on to Chocolate Chip cardstock. I then used my Crop-a-Dile to put another black eyelet in the top centre and used my deckle scissors to trip the top of the insert. I then put some ribbon in the top to provide a tab to pull out the insert more easily.

Love my cuttlebug!

This card was really easy to make. Instead of a stamped sentiment, I used my cuttlebug. I embossed the Love sentiment with my cuttlebug embossing folder and used the postage stamp die to cut out the green square. Then I trimmed the burgundy paper to mat the green. Then I changed my mind, and tilted the squares. I think this creates more interest. As you can see I use this template a lot. I simply change the paper and move the setiment along the ribbon.

Cherish the Memories

This card came out of a set of sympathy cards I made. One of my former colleagues lost her husband in a bike vs car accident. He was pretty young and they have 2 small children. It was very tragic. I tried to think up an appropriate card for such a sad moment. This card uses the stampset Too Terrific Tags. I printed out the sentiment "cherish the memories" in red and then stamped the image on top of it in Certainly Celery. I didn't have a Stamp-a-ma-jig at the time, so it's not perfectly ligned up. The ribbon says Memories and has butterflies that were very close in colour to Purely Pomengranate and Certainly Celery. Inside the card the sentiment says "Someone so special...can never be forgotten." And then I stamped the "cherish" sentiment from the Baroque Motifs set. (love that set!) The background stamp is from Great Impressions.

This card was made without Stampin Up paper. And the stamp is from Stampin' Up but I can't remember the name of the set (retired). Then I used the 1 1/4 inch and 1 3/8 inch circle punches and the scallop circle. Everythings was held together with snail and popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals. I really love this glitter paper. It's from K & Co.

Digging through my stash of cards

Well seeing as I have posted so many of my scrapbook pages, I decided to showcase some of my cards today. I dug through my stash and decided to show several based on the same template.

Basically a solid colour mats the DSP and a ribbon wraps around the DSP with some sort of stamp showcased on the ribbon. (look at the cards and you'll understand)

I made most of these when I had just started getting into Stampin Up, so most of the DSP is not actually Stampin' Up product - but in the future...

The first two cards - above were made using the "big on spring" stamp set from the last Occasions Mini. The designer papers are from DCWV Glitter stack. I matted on on Chocolate chip and the other on Certainly Celery. I stamped the image, coloured in the words and image with markers and then used my 2 say glue pen to put glitter on the image.

Let the CUTE Begin

This is my daughter Teagan. Monday is her first birthday. These photos were taken in Horshoe Bay as we waited for the ferry at the start of our trip a few weeks ago. She LOVES swings. I took all these photos with my phone, but was so impressed with them that I decided to make a scrapbook page with them. Teagan has the funniest expressions. My son was a very personable and easy baby, but Teagan flirts like crazy! She meets all kinds of people in public. She's quite the drama queen. My absolute favourite photo, and the wallpaper on my phone, is the one on the top left. That is such a common expression from this girl.

I really wanted to use the stamp "let the CUTE begin" from Big on Spring for my title. I know I'm biased, but she's so darn cute.

Anyway, this page took an amazingly long time to do. Originally I was planning to use the Simply Scrappin' kit Special Delivery Girl - which has just retired. But I didn't like the colour combo with these photos. So then I decided to try Summer Home because Riding Hood Red is very similar to the colour of the swing that Teagan is in, but again it just didn't sit well with me. So then I pulled out another bundle of retired paper called Spring Fling, and used this paper which is mostly Sage Shadow in colour. So I matted the photos on Sage Shadow paper and stamped my images with Sage Shadow ink. The other stamp set I used was another retired set called "Sweet Thing". The top sentiment says Sweet Thing and the other stamp says "It's a big world!" I also punched out another image from the reverse side of the paper (holes hidden by photos) and used my scallop circle punch and my 1 1/4 circle and 1 3/8 circle punches to finish off the flower on the lower left. I also used my two way glue pen to put glitter on the title of the page. I used the Dazzling Diamonds Glitter. All of the stamped images were popped up with Stampin' Dimensionals (pop up dots), to give it an extra edge.

Love and Affection

So I sat down tonight and took another stab at an 8x8 page. I love this picture of my son and me. I was actually holding the camera myself to take this shot. We were in the process of winding up a tickle fight and so the sticker 'Love and Affection' is very appropriate for this photo. What I find interesting is that although I don't usually like this colour pallet, I am actually wearing a blue top with a brown jacket and my son is wearing a red top which is very close to the colour of Riding Hood Red. Again this page didn't take very long to make. I can't wait to get those shadowboxes on the wall!

Summer Home

This is a picture of my hubby Brad and my daughter Teagan. I took this picture last week at the Farrell family cabin in Powell River. Teagan has her first birthday next Monday. How time flies. This is an 8 x 8 page I did with Stampin' Up's Summer Home Simply Scrappin'. I love, love, love this kit. And the funny thing is that I am not a huge fan of this year's In Colors, which are fully featured in this kit. But as you can tell from Brad's brown shirt, he loves earth tones (not my favourite, as I said last post), but I think that it really works with this picture. I try to draw colours out of the picture when designing a scrapbook page and I felt that the brown shirt, blue blanket in the background and the green trees outsite the window set the tone for this layout. I recently bought 4 small 8x8 shadowboxes and I have decided to showcase scrapbook pages in them and then change them every few months. Then I'll take them down and put them in a scrapbook. This page will be the first one. What I really love about this page is that it took me 15 minutes to do. As I'm heading back to work in 2 weeks after a year off on maternity leave, I'm not sure that I'm going to have a lot of time for scrapbooking, and yet with these Simply Scrappin' kits, it is soooo easy. Plus I know that with 2 small children I want to make sure I capture those memories and not miss any important moments.

brayer technique

So here's a technique that I'm not sure about. This is called the brayer technique. It involves layering different types of colours with a brayer. The sun was blocked out by using a post-it cut in a circle. Thanks to Kari Metzger for teaching me this technique. See her blog 'The Stamping Grounds' in my blog list for more details. I wasn't very impressed with this card when I made it initially. But it's really grown on me and now I actually am very proud of it. When my new brayer comes from Stampin' Up next week I'll have to try it with different colours, as earth tones are not my favourite.

More Wedding Album Pages

Well here are some more pictures of my scrapbooking eneavours. Again these pictures are from Heather's wedding. The top page was done with Porcelain Prints DSP and Baroque Motifs stamp sets as well as some Martha Stewart clear stamps from Wal-Mart. I really love the combination of Blue Bayou, Certainly Celery and River Rock. The flower medalions were stamped in the Rock and Roll Method which involes stamping the rubber stamp in the lighter coloured in and then "rolling" the outer edges of the stamp in the darker ink. This is the first time I've tried something like this and I really like the results with this paper.
This second page features the bridesmaids. Like I said, I made the dresses and I really like how they turned out. But I digress. I used the same Martha Stewart clear stamps and the same Baroque Motifs stamp sets. The ink colours are Blue Bayou and Certainly Celery again. And again I used the Porcelain Prints DSP. Oh yeah, and apparently the photogapher really liked how I did my hair and took a picture of the back of my head.

Here I go...

Well here I go. Off into the blogosphere. :)
Here is a photo of my latest scrapbooking page. (Yes, I brought supplies on my vacation - what am I supposed to do after the kids go to bed and there's no cable?) So anyway, this page is from my girlfriend Heather's wedding which was last month. Doesn't she look fabulous? I love her dress. I made the bridesmaid dresses. We each chose our own pattern so that each dress was flattering to our body types. These pictures are all taken just before we go down the aisle. In the centre photo that's me in the background, Estelle, and Sharann. The bottom photo is the flower girls, Heather's neices. It's so cute the way they are peeking around the corner, waiting to go down the aisle. I used River Rock as my background colour, and Porcelain Prints DSP. I just love last year's In Colors and I'm going to have a hard time saying goodbye to them. Good thing I bought a bunch of my favourites! I used Live Your Dream, and Baroque Motifs stamp sets. I did not bring up my River Rock ink pad so I used Chocolate Chip to do the stamps. Of course I really regret leaving my punches at home, but I decided to save on space. I would have preferred to have used a circle punch on the small stamped images, but I used my deckle scissors instead. The ribbon is from the Dollarama in Powell River - sometimes there's good finds there. And finally I used Stampin

Dimensionals under the stamped images, but not the words. I find that otherwise things get too thick for my album.