Back with a Page!

Yes, I'm back! Hooray! I had a great week at my mom's and we were super productive! We got to spend time with lots of family and some friends, and that was fabulous. I even helped my mom get 10 events scrapbooked but I forgot to take pictures of any of them, hahaha!

I mentioned last week that I had ordered a lot of prints and really wanted to get them scrapped...last night I put this page together (using THIS sketch) to share here:

Supplies:
Paper: Old Olive, Very Vanilla & Pool Party card stocks, Epic Day DP
Accessories: Brights Candy Dots

The top picture is duplicated in color in the right corner. I just love that shot of my daughter walking away, with the wind blowing her hair and skirt. It's one of my very favorites. One of her favorite things to do at my parents is put on dress-ups (which are almost entirely old clothes of my moms) and play outside. This was a gorgeous day for it, and I'm so glad I finally got these pics in her book!

Scrapbook Alert!

I haven't stamped a single thing this week and I don't think its going to happen this weekend either...! We had a mini-family vacation earlier this week and a birthday party tomorrow and and and and and!!! I did get a big order of printed photos this week that I am just itching to scrapbook, which leads me to the purpose for this post!
One of my scrapping buddies from the monthly goal group is starting up a new scrapbook challenge blog! I love things like this, even if I don't get to play with them very often. So here I am spreading the word about 1 2 3 Get Scrappy!! If you have any interest in scrapbooking at all, be sure and check it out and add it to your favorites!

Retired Scrapbooking

Today I'm sharing two scrapbook layouts that feature mostly retired products. The first one was for a challenge to specifically use retired product, lol! I have to admit, many times the things I choose to purchase are for a specific scrapbook project, which is why I hardly ever part with embellishments or 12x12 paper, haha. I don't consider myself a hoarder, but I am holding on to things until the time I get these photos or that printed off and ready to scrap. The day I made these pages I pulled out my son's photo box. In that one box, there are 62 different events, printed and ready to be scrapped- I just need the time! (this is why I set a monthly scrapbooking goal and try my best to achieve it!)

Supplies:
Stamps: Just Perfect ABC (retired)
Ink: Midnight Muse
Paper: Old Olive, Bashful Blue (retired), More Mustard (retired) card stocks, Simply Sent Kit (retired)
Accessories: Pennant Punch, Hodgepodge Hardware (retired), retired buttons

And this layout uses the latest EMS Sketch:

Supplies:
Stamps: Taffy Alphabet (retired)
Ink: Old Olive
Paper: Old Olive & Pumpkin Pie card stocks, Just Add Cake DP (retired)

On the note of scrapbooking, you may have already noticed, but incase you haven't, I'll explain something... The last time I posted a scrapbook page, I also added some things to my sidebar. Cheryl is a fabulous scrapper and I have used her sketches plenty of times (like today!). One thing I love about her blog is that its so easy to find a sketch to fit the photos I have, instead of the other way around - which is much more time consuming, haha. Goodness knows I have plenty of pages shared on this blog and it would save me a lot of time if I too could just find a cute way to scrap 8 photos...or 3...or whatever I happen to have! So under the sidebar section "Find My Stamps" I now have labels to help me easily find layouts I already like, for those times when I just want to crank out some pages! Give it a shot- you might find a layout you love too!

A Follow-Up...

Today I just wanted to show something...Often I post a card and say that I'll add a greeting later when I know what I need. Well, I really do do that. This week I sent off three cards, and needed to add a greeting to all of them, so I snapped a pic to show you what I mean...

I just picked a coordinating ink, the greeting I needed, and voila! Three cute cards, ready to be stuck in the mail!
Have you mailed anything lately?

Happy Retro!

Happy Friday to you! Got any fun plans for the weekend? We're waiting to see if the sickies are out of the house or not...that will definitely affect plans...!
No, I did not need all of the sympathy cards I've been sharing, just the one, but I figured it was a good time to make a few extras for next time...!

For that change of pace I promised, here's a bright, happy card. I used the latest Retro Sketch, and I love the rounded top corner. I thought the Wanderlust stamp set could make a fun collage kind of stamping, and it did. I think it works nicely for an all-occasion card. I used all the ink colors that you find in the fun I Am Me DP.

Supplies:
Stamps: Wanderlust
Ink: Calypso Coral, Basic Gray, Daffodil Delight, Coastal Cabana, Real Red
Paper: Daffodil Delight, Whisper White card stocks, I Am Me DP
Accessories: Daffodil stitched grosgrain ribbon, Brights Candy Dots, Corner Rounder Punch

Sympathy #3

This is my final sympathy card for this week thankyouverymuch. We're gonna need a change of pace around here, haha.
Again, I used an older sketch, this time from Clean & Simple, and I used an older Dynamic Duo, for Basic Gray and Your Choice! (I picked Wisteria Wonder, incase that isn't clear, haha)

Supplies:
Stamps: Summer Silhouettes, Four Frames, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink: Basic Gray, Wisteria Wonder
Paper: Wisteria Wonder, Basic Gray, Whisper White card stocks
Accessories: Designer Label Punch, Scallop Edge Punch, White Taffeta Ribbon, Dimensionals

Sympathy #2

Today's sympathy card uses the same stamp set as yesterday, an older Freshly Made sketch, and I browsed the Dynamic Duo challenge blog for some color combination ideas, so I used one of their older color combos (#24: Pool Party & Soft Suede) too! The other thing about this card is that my area of the world is burning...the day I took this pic, the sky was so hazy with smoke that its totally discolored my photo...that is Whisper White card stock you're looking at....I promise. whoa...

Supplies:
Stamps: Simply Sketched
Ink: Soft Suede, Coastal Cabana Marker
Paper: Pool Party, Soft Suede, Whisper White card stocks
Accessories: Scallop Edge Punch, Hexagon Punch, Neutral Buttons, White Linen Thread

Sympathy Cards

I don't know about you, but I hate making this kind of card. I have said a few times in recent weeks that I just need to make a stack...and apparently I do because I just can't get in to it when I need one. And I needed one. sigh.
So here's the first sympathy-ish card for the week. I used a sketch that was provided a few weeks ago but I hadn't had a chance to play with yet. I don't know why all my words ended up slightly slanted, other than I told you already I didn't want to make this kind of card... haha...

Supplies:
Stamps: Simply Sketched, Teeny Tiny Wishes
Ink: Basic Gray, Smoky Slate, Crisp Cantaloupe marker
Paper: Crisp Cantaloupe, Pistachio Pudding card stocks
Accessories: Neutral Buttons, Organza Ribbon, White Bakers Twine, Scallop Edge Punch

a little bird...

I took a little time to play this weekend and created a couple cards. Today I'll share the first one. The sketch is still current, lol, its the latest from Freshly Made Sketches. Its a pretty simple card, and I love that the new In Colors are so soft. I did a little paper piercing in the corner to add a little bit of something to it...

Supplies:
Stamps: Simply Sketched
Ink: Basic Gray, Pistachio Pudding marker, Baked Brown Sugar marker
Paper: Baked Brown Sugar, Pistachio Pudding card stocks
Accessories: Natural Ribbon, Dimensionals, Mat Pack

Paper Pizza!

I hope everyone had a fun and relaxing 4th of July yesterday. We sure did; low-key, but a fun family day!
Today I'm showing off the birthday party invitations I've been working on! These were totally inspired by Patty's post HERE, and I'll show you how I did some of the things with the tools I had. Because they are just birthday invitations and pretty much guaranteed to be tossed, I used mostly retired card stock. I didn't "sponge" the ink like Patty does, I used the direct-to-paper/swiping technique I use quite often. I think it added a good amount of "sauce" and "baked crust", haha... I don't have a dotty stamp, so I used my retired Versamarker to "dot" the pepperonis. Instead of a Versamarker you could just a marker in the same color ink as the card stock you're using.

First, a close up! I think I'll probably just hand write "Time to Party" or something like that across the top, and I'll type up the party details, print it off and glue it to the back, like I usually do, lol.

 

 

Supplies:

Ink: Real Red, Crumb Cake, Versamarker (retired)

Paper: Whisper White, Baja Breeze (retired), More Mustard (retired), Crumb Cake, Riding Hood Red (retired), Kiwi Kiss(retired), Basic Black

Accessories: 1/2 inch circle punch, 1 3/4 inch Scallop circle punch, Extra Large Oval Punch, 1 3/8 inch circle punch. 3-hole punch

 

Since they're for his party, I had my son assemble the pieces into what ever kind of pizza slice he wanted, so they all look a little different. He doesn't eat things like peppers or onions, but I thought they were really cute on Patty's pizzas, so I made them, haha!

 

 

To make the olives, I used a standard three-hole-punch to cut the hole in the middle...

 

and then I used my 1/2 inch circle punch around that hole, like this:

For the peppers, I just cut an edge of my scallop punch and kept going across the sheet of paper, like this:

I did the same thing with the onions and my oval punch.
The plates are just a traced bowl, and then a smaller container traced around the center with the Versamarker, and I made blue plates to add a cool color to these very hot shaded pizzas! 

Another Layout

Today's layout continues from THIS layout, today's shows the party that was held after the first set, haha.
When creating this page, I used a challenge to use a shape besides squares on your page, which was totally easy with my new Hexagon Punch! I punched out bits from the Epic Day DP, and used strips from it too.

Supplies:
Paper: Epic Day DP, Old Olive, Pool Party card stocks
Accessories: Epic Day washi tape, Hexagon Punch

Blog Hop: Summer Celebration!

Welcome to our July Blog Hop!

Anna has picked the theme of Summer Celebration and I can't think of anything more fun! I hope you're as excited as I am to see all the fun ideas everyone has, and that you'll hop all the way through with us! I got a box of new goodies just as I finally had a chance to work on these projects so you'll see a lot of new stuff shown off here today! *grin I didn't realize til I went to post that I use the same DP pack on all three projects, haha!

This particular summer itself is quite a celebration for my family, haha...my long time readers will know that most of my summers are usually spent away from home running a scout camp with my husband- but he had the opportunity to change jobs in the past year and we are spending this summer home, as a whole family! Whoohoo for that! We've got to do some fun things as a family, and we're only a month into our summer!

So first up is a random day Summer Celebration kind of scrapbook page! Seems like playing in the water is always a celebration, especially for kids, so here's a trip to a really fun splash pad!

Supplies:

Stamps: Swallowtail

Ink: Basic Gray

Paper: I Am Me DP, So Saffron card stock

July in my house includes a birthday, and every birthday must be Celebrated! Thanks Anna for encouraging me to get this card done in plenty of time! I wanted to use THIS Retro Sketch, and after I made it I had a better idea for it, so here are two very similar cards, haha...

Supplies:
Stamps: Make a Cake, Itty Bitty Banners
Ink: Pool Party, Gumball Green Bermuda Bay, Calypso Coral, Daffodil Delight
Paper: I Am Me DP, Calypso Coral & Whisper White card stocks
Accessories: Brights Candy Dots, Epic Day Washi Tape, White Bakers Twine

Independence Day is another fun Summer Celebration all across the country, so I had to include this layout as well, with pictures from two years ago. The other exciting thing about this page is the stamps I used are from the newest photopolymer stamp set!! Check it out HERE. I love that the postcard made for a perfect journaling spot!

Supplies:
Stamps: Wanderlust
Ink: Real Red
Paper: I Am Me DP, Pool Party, Real Red & Whisper White card stocks
Accessories: Brights Candy Dots

Now go see everyone else's ideas for a Summer Celebration and let us know what you think! *grin