An Urban Garden

I used the Urban Garden DSP and Define Your Life, Define Your Life Alphabet, and Always stamp sets to create these 6 pages. I've posted one of the 3 double page layouts above. I looooooove this DSP. I can't wait to add my own photos to these pages! Check my calendar to see when the class is available. This class is 6 pages for $25!!!!

Best Ever

Here's 4 of the 6 pages I'm offering in my Best Ever birthday layout page class. This 3 double page layout class is available for only $25. Please check my calendar in the side bar to check the dates. When I did the top 2 pages I had my nephew's birthday in mind for the layout so I did the layout and then got the photos developed. Because his birthday was in August, I had forgotten what he had been wearing but I was pleasantly surprised that the colours of the layout matched his outfit perfectly.

Baby Gifts

This is an example of one of my double page layouts. I made them for my friend Christine who had a new baby boy on Tuesday. I hope she will add her own baby pictures. I used the retired Simply Scrappin' Kit, Special Delivery Boy. It took me less than an hour to do this layout. I can't emphasize enough how fabulously easy it is to work with the Simply Scrappin' kits.

Summer Fun

Top Note Fun!

So I completely love all the creative ideas that people are coming up with using punches and the new Big Shot. I really love the Frankenstein that is all over Splitcoast right now. I decided to try something with my grade 2 class. I used the Big Shot to cut out the top note die from green construction paper and then I let the kids decorate them by themselves. I really love the creative touches that the kids added. My plan is to use these monsters for a descriptive writing activity. I am so thrilled with all the ways you can use a Big Shot in my classroom.

It's Sweater Weather!

So I sat down this week to devise a plan to get an incredible 6 scrapbook pages (3 - 12x12 layouts) out of my Ski Slope DSP. I absolutely LOVE this paper. I have used my Big Shot, Coluzle, In Colour cardstock and ink, velum paper, grosgrain ribbon (Very Vanilla and Chocolate Chip) Scandinavian Season wheel and stamp set and Snow Swirled stamp set, white embossing powder and heat gun plus various punches (large oval, scallop circle, tag corner). And finally my Cricket Expressions. I had a blast making these. I'd like to offer this as a class. 6 Scrapbook pages for $25!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Give me a few days and I'll have time to set the date!

Pumpkins and Fall...

Here's another of my fall shadowboxes. I used my coluzzle to cut out the ovals. The leaves I learned how to do from Pattystamps.com. All the paper is from K&Co.
HAPPY THANKSGIVING everyone!

Gobble, gobble, gobble...

Yesterday my son come home from preschool with this adorable little Turkey. He was so proud of it that I mounted into one of my shadowboxes. Monday is Canadian Thanksgiving and we've got 2 family dinner's planned for this weekend. It's going to be a fun weekend!

More Autumn Decor

I went into a local scrapbooking store last week and saw cute pumpkin cards made with oval punches and orange cardstock. I was inspired to make another shadowbox.

The brown fence is made from Close to Cocoa cardstock rubbed with Basic Black, Chocolate Chip, and Close to Cocoa classic ink, and Whisper White craft ink. I cut the cardstock into 1 cm strips and then glued it up as a fence. The green and orange paper is from K&Co. The stamps are from last years Martha Stewart Collection.

Halloween Shadowboxes

Well if you've been following my blog for any length of time you will remember that a few months ago I bought 4 white 8x8 shadowboxes. I managed to get 3 scrapbooking pages done and put in the boxes. Then I went back to work in September after a year off on maternity leave. Going back to work with 2 toddlers at home is very busy and spare time is very precious. Anyway, I have been running several ideas around in my head about what to put in those shadowboxes next. They are hanging above the fireplace in my living room and I've been trying to decorate for Thanksgiving next week and for Halloween. So I had lots of ideas buzzing around in my head this morning when I found myself awake at 8am and heard no sounds from my children's rooms. I actually had an hour and a half this morning to play in my scrap room. If the image above looks very familiar, see my post below. I actually took that idea and altered the colours a bit to more earthy tones. The paper is all from K&Co. Next to Stampin' Up! DSP, I think that they have the best paper ever! I used the Big Shot to cut out the large scallop and then stamped the leaves from the Earth Elements palette. The pumpkins are all cut out using various sized circle punches and then stamped with the jack-o-lantern face from Holiday Blitz. The owl, cat, bat, and sentiments are all from the Halloween Frights stamp set (see your mini catty ladies!) and the tree and leaves are from the Season of Friendship set (again in the holiday mini). I used a flower punch from Boho Blossoms to make the stems and leaves on the pumpkins. Tomorrow I'll show you another of these boxes that I made. I'm feeling very Martha Stewarty as I decorate my home for the holidays. (at least I can pretend right?)

A Final Christmas Entry

Here's another entry that I made for the Stampin' Success contest. I really love this card and might make a Halloween version with my grade 2 students. The faux wood technique involves wiping the stamp pad across the paper in the direct to paper technique I used Close to Cocoa cardstock and then wiped the paper with Close to Cocoa, Basic Black, and Chocolate Chip classic ink. Then I wiped it with Whisper White Craft Ink. Then I cut the paper into 1 cm strips and then folded my card to open in the middle. Then I glued on the strips of paper to create doors.
The wreaths were cut from Kiwi Kiss cardstock using my Big Shot, and then stamped with the flower from A Beautiful Thing in Versa Mark and heat embossed with clear embossing powder.

The centre was cut out using the 3/4 inch circle. The Red Ribbon is Riding Hood Red Taffeta Ribbon. The Handles were made by stamping out a circle from Seeing spots, heat embossing it with silver embossing powder and then cutting out the image and popping it up with Stampin' Dimensionals. The hinges were made with the tab punch and then trimmed. Next I added the silver brads and then glued the "hinges" on. Finally the sentiment was a rub-on from the Season of Cheer set and I trimmed around the image and then used my corner rounder punch to tidy it up.

I've got a WINNER!!!!

OK so I've been spending far too much time entering card making and papercrafting contests. However I am so proud to announce that I have won the "Need a Little Christmas" contest in Stampin Up!'s Stampin' Success magazine. And this is a picture of the winning card. My other entries are posted below. I sat down to enter the contest and realized I am seriously lacking in Christmas stampsets. So I decided to see what I could make with non-Christmas stuff. The wreath was made by punching out Kiwi Kiss cardstock with the Boho Blossoms punch. I used the largest flower and brushed around the endges of each flower with Kiwi Kiss ink. I cut a base ring using my coluzze. Next I glued the flowers around the ring using Crystal Effects. The bow is made from Riding Rood Red taffeta ribbon. Then I glued the whole thing on to Riding Hood Red cardstock cut out with the Top Note Bigz die (thanks
Ange, my own die is now on order) Then it was glued on a piece of DSP (green tea) and finally glued on a Chocolate Chip base. The sentiment is from the Punches Three hostess set. I stamped it in Chocolate Chip on Very Vanilla cardstock and then punched it out with the scallop square punch. Next I cut out just the sentiment with craft scissors. I brushed the edges with Chocolate Chip ink to hide the flaws. I put two silver brads in and then attached the whole thing to the card front. My biggest regret is that I glued the wreath in the middle as if I had offset it the sentiment would have been a bit more balanced. But anyway thanks for letting me toot my own horn.

An Atypical Poinsettia

I apologize for the out of focus picture. I sent this in as an entry into the competition for Demonstrators in Stampin' Success magazine. This flower was created from using the leaf stamp from the Happiness Always Hostess set. First I used the stamp in Riding Hood Red and made the flower. Next I added the green leaves with Kiwi Kiss. Then I used Pink Pirouette and Chocolate Chip to sponge the background. The sentiment is from the Snow Swirled stampset. I used my scallop edge punch and Chocolate Chip cardstock to create the scallop border and then I mounted the whole thing on Riding Hood Red. Oh yeah, and the yellow brads are from the soft subtles set.

Spooky Nights!

This is my entry into the creative challenge on SoShelli.com. Shelli Gardner is the CEO of Stampin Up! and her blog is linked on my sidebar. Anyway the current challenge is to do a Halloween project. I have looked through all the entries so far and I have to admit that I am very intimidated. But what the hey, I might as well try. (but I digress) So this is supposed to be wall decor. I hope to frame it in one of my shadowboxes. The stampsets I used were Season of Friendship, Halloween Frights, and Holiday Blitz. First I started by punching out the scallop with my Big Shot in Summer Sun cardstock. Next I stamped it with the leaves in many shades of Earth Elements ink.
Most of the images were stamped in Versa Mark and Embossed with clear Embossing powder. I then cut them out with a pair of craft scissors. I assembled the scene on Elegant Eggplant textured cardstock and then trimmed and glued on Summer Sun cardstock and then again on Basic Black cardstock. The sentiment was stamped on Creamy Caramel cardstock and embossed in black. Then I punched it out with my new scallop square punch and brushed the edges with Creamy Caramel ink. The owl and the sentiment were popped up with stampin dimensionals. Other cardstock used was Chocolate Chip and Pumpkin Pie. I love to use purple with Halloween.

Celebrate The Season

I made this card playing around with ideas to submit to this month's Stampin' Success magazine for Demonstrators. Then I reread the rules and realized that the stamp I used was retired and thus, inelligible. Oh well. I made this by stamping and clear embossing the image on glossy cardstock. Then I sponged around the image with Blue Bayou, Certainly Celery , and Chocolate Chip. Next I punched out the medallion with my Circle Scallop punch. The ribbon is chocolate chip 1/4 inch grosgrain. The striped paper is Green Tea DSP and the cardstock is Chocolate Chip, Blue Bayou and Certainly Celery.

Happy Holidays already?!?

Yeah, yeah, I know, Christmas is MONTHS away. But I had to show this card. It was thought up by my 2nd level upline Kari. She used it as her swap at Founder's Circle a few weeks ago (way to go Kari!) We did it as a make and take at her downline meeting right before she left for Founder's Circle and I've been waiting for the right time to post it. The Top Note Bigz die was used on Real Red, and Whisper white cardstock. Then we used craft scissors to trim back the white paper. Next we stamped the image and the sentiment in Basic Black on the Whiper White Die Cut. Then we used various stampin write markers to colour in the image. Then it was adhered on to another piece of whisper white cardstock with the striped grosgrain attached. I then took it home and used my corner punch on it and then adhered it to a card made from Close To Cocoa cardstock. This was fun, but really labour intensive. Congrats to Kari for taking all that time to make 135 of these. You can find her blog listed on my sidebar.

Little Bundle

Here's yet another baby card. I used Whisper White and Pirouette Pink cardstock and Pirouette Pink DSP. I used my fiskars edge punch to do the lace and I used my cuttlebug to emboss the sentiment and cut out the flowers. I assembled the flower and put a pink eyelet in the middle. The white grosbrain ribbon is from Michaels.

Baby Onsie

So here's a baby card that I cased off of several sources at Splitcoast Stampers. The Base is Pink 'Pirouette cardstock with some old DSP from last year glued on. I then used my circle and scallop punches to make the ruffles. The snaps are eyelets, and the ribbon is some old stuff from Michaels. The fold is on the top.

Baby Card!

I just got my new stampset Holiday Blitz and I decided to test it out with perfect plum paper DSP and cardstock. I was inspired by visiting the new baby store in North Vancouver with all their exclusive baby stuff. I also used Very vanilla cardstock and ribbon. I punched the top and bottom borders with a fancy lace punch from Fiskars that I got at Zellers for $4. The image was stamped on very vanilla and punched with the 1 1/4 inch circle punch. I used Pink pirouette cardstock and punched it with the 1 3/8 inch circle punch and then finally used the circle scallop punch.

My First Workshop!

So yesterday I had my first workshop! It was tons of fun and I learned lots about how to teach a workshop. The bottom card I used as a demo, and the top card was the make and take. The stamp sets I used were Merry and Bright and Cute and Curly. Paper and inks were Riding Hood Red, Kiwi Kiss, Basic Black, and Certainly Celery. I used the Culy punch on both cards and also the 1 1/4 inch and 1 3/8 inch circle punches and the scallop circle. The images were coloured with blender pens. The top card used Riding Hood REd DSP and Very Vanilla grosgrain ribbon. I also used the corner punchl. The bottom card has snow flakes stamped and clear embossed over the tree. And finally the sentiment on the bottom card is a sticker from the Season to Share sticker set. Oh yeah and the DSP on the bottom card is from the Green Tea collection.