No. 45

Hello again! Today I have a simple card to share with you all - lots of fabulous layers with beautiful, coordinating colours. I created this card with the gorgeous, new (and one of my all time faves) Olde Curiosity Shoppe Collection from Graphic 45. SWOON! I don't know what it is about odd images paired with gorgeously vibrant colours or the unique patterns and perfectly worn textures on the papers but I am seriously just overwhelmed each and every time I open up a new paper pad...fall in love all over again.

Now, please excuse the sketch.  I recently purchased Adobe Photoshop CS5 and I am seriously CLUELESS!  This is way over the top photo editing here people!  I mean, I am so excited about all the stuff this program can do but whether or not I will have the time to learn all this program can offer is another story!  Even the basic stuff is over my head.  (this is not a straightforward program - oh picnik how I miss you!)  It's like having an amazing camera and leaving it on "Auto" for 90% of the time (this is me again actually...ahem)  In any regard, here is a sketch for you to try if you like the card above.  Enjoy!

P.S. ANY and ALL Photoshop tips are GREATLY appreciated. I JUST found out how to remove red eye and am so stoked!!! (I didn't realize if you hold down the side bar items, that a scroll down menu appears on most of them - duh!) I'm going crazy here.

Dream a Little Dream

Just a quick post today as I wanted to share a happy layout I created with Bo Bunny's Alora Collection.

This is such a fun collection - overflowing with bright, happy, vibrant colours.

I layered lots of embellishments on top of one another which helped to add deapth and dimension to my project.  I also clustered many of my embellishments close to my photo to help frame it and keep it as the focal point of the layout.

To help 'regular' details stand out and appear as more of an 'attractive' embellishment, try adding some 3D squares/pop dots under your item.  This will cause your detail to be lifted off the page so that it stands out much better.  This is what I did with my little flags below.  They are simply strips of paper cut into flag shapes and popped off the page with 3D squares and accented with cardstock stickers.

Thank you so much for your visit today. I'll be back tomorrow with a vintage card and sketch for you to try!

2012 Graphic 45 Design Team

Whoohoo!! It is with great pleasure that I announce I have made Graphic 45's Design Team for yet another year! I am so very pleased - I adore their products so much and working with the entire Graphic 45 family is equally amazing!  Here is the official announcement posted on the Graphic 45 blog today...
And the new Graphic 45 Design Team members for 2012 (in no particular order) are...
1. Denise Hahn - USA
2. Sharon Ngoo - Singapore
3. Nicole Eccles - USA
4. Clare Charvill - UK
5. Alberto Juárez Díaz - Spain
6. Arlene Cuevas - USA
7. Tara Orr - Canada
8. Jim Hankins - USA
9. Maiko Miwa - Japan
10. Gloria Stengel - USA
11. Susan Lui - Singapore
12. Kristin Wilson - USA
13. Jane Tregenza - Australia
14. Roberto Cesar dos Santos - Brazil
15. Laura Denison - USA

Congrats to everyone who made the new 2012 Design Team!! Cannot wait to work with you all this year!

March Zva Blog Hop Winners Announced

We'd like to congratulate the following FIVE participants who won a prize from our design team member's blogs for March's Blog Hop! Their names will be found on the following blogs:
Carole Maurin
Christin Grønnslett
Jolanda Meurs
Robin Shakoor
Windy Robinson

One winner from each of the 5 blogs and one winner on Zva's blog will receive a Zva prize package worth $30.00.   Congrats winners!

Note to Self

I love taking photos and almost always have my camera in hand just in case that special ‘kodak’ moment presents itself. My daughter decided to have a ‘dressy’ day and put on one of her many girly-girl dresses and began twirling in our living room.  Of course I had to snap a few photos!

Although they aren’t super clear, I just love the movement in the images and the feminine feeling behind them.

The new All I Ever Collection from 7 Dots Studio was the perfect mix of colours with the sweet and delicately soft patterns, to showcase my adorable little wee one.   The beautiful flowers and leaves are all by ZVA Creative. I find they work so wonderfully with all of the feminine collections from 7 Dots!

7 Dots Studio Supplies:
Chipboards
All I Ever: Soft Blanket, Vanilla Buttercream, Velveteen Dreams, Box of Emotions
All I Ever - Elements 12×12
All I Ever - Stickers 12×12
All I Ever - Stickers 6×12
All I Ever - Alpha Stickers – Summer Night

March Blog Winners!!

Aloha!! I am back from my wonderfully relaxing vacation in Maui - what a fantastic time I had!!  The weather was beautiful every, single day and the scenery was absolutely magnificent!  All good things must come to an end and I have been madly playing catch-up since I arrived home yesterday.

Firstly, I wanted to announce the TWO winners of my March Blog Candy.  Huge Congratulations to Jojorenee (Timepiece Collection Pack) and juli (sweetpz) (Smoochable Collection Pack)!!

Jojorenee said...

What generous finger-licking prize packs!

March 12, 2012 8:23 AM

juli (sweetpz) said...

yummy blog candy! thanks for the chance to win =)
hugs
juli

March 12, 2012 7:51 PM

Ladies, if you could please send me an email (torrjorr[at]gmail[dot]com) with your contact details, I will send you off your goodies ASAP!

Will be back tomorrow with some scrappy goodness to share with you all, as well as some warm and sunny Maui shots! 

Zva Creative March DT Blog Hop!

Zva Creative and our talented Design Team welcome you to our March blog hop!The Blog Hop begins at Zva Creative's BLOG! Be sure head on over to check it out! Leave a comment there for a chance to win an extra prize package just for visiting the blog and telling us that you stopped by! You will also find a complete list of all the participating blogs there (in case there is a glitch along the way).

As you know, Zva offers many beautiful color groupings for pearls, flowers and crystals. We want to make sure that they shine bright for you, so each designer was will be sharing a creation using a specific color or color combination on their blog hop project. If you like what you see you can find a list of stores and online retailers that sell Zva HERE.

For my project today, I used some beautiful taupe pearl flourishes as well as some of ZVA's bulk 3D Rose blossoms in cream which I painted to match the tones in my patterned papers.

The papers and chipboard elements are from 7 Dots Studio's Wonderland Collection. Just love the grungy feeling of this line - it actually forces me to change up my style to incorporate a more torn and distressed composition.

If you would like to play along with our design team, just follow along the blog path. I am linking to one of the Zva designers and that designer is linking to the next and so on. Be prepared to be inspired along the way!
Hidden on FIVE of the designer’s blogs is a Zva Creative prize package! Winners will be randomly chosen after the hop is over, so it's important to leave a comment on as many blogs as you can along the way.  The Blog Hop starts today, March 26th and runs through midnight US Eastern Standard Time on Tuesday, March 27th.

The 5 winners will be announced on Wednesday, March 28th on each of the five winning blogs. The full list will be found on Zva’s blog as well. We will do our best to notify each winner, but it's best if you can pop in to all of the blogs once again on Wednesday... plus, you never know what kind of inspirational creation that you may find there.

All you need to do is leave a comment on this Blog Hop post... you do not need to leave a comment on each and every designer's blog post to qualify. However, the more times you comment along the bloghop path, the more chances you will have to win.

We also thought it would be more fun to add even more chances to win our blog hop prize!  To increase your chances of winning:
* Comment to let us know that you posted on your Facebook page about our hop (link to any of the blog hop posts)
* Comment to let us know that you "tweeted" about our hop (link to any of the blog hop posts)
* Comment to let us know that you asked your local store to carry Zva creative products. If they already do, that's fantastic, maybe you can suggest other products that they don't carry.
* Hop over to Zva's NEW BLOG and leave a comment there to tell us that you made it there!

The blog hop begins here at Zva Creative's NEW BLOG. Your next stop is Andrea Ewen. Enjoy!
Thank you for joining us!

P.S. Mark your calendar to join us again on April 30th for ournext Zva blog hop!

Curious

I decided to keep this layout very clean and simple (at least for me). It just about killed me to 'not' rough up the edges just a little bit or to 'not' tear the papers ever so slightly. The longer I looked at this layout, the more I realized that less was more. The collection is already so beautifully contrasting. All I wanted to see in the end was as many layers as possible of purely, gorgeous, papers.

The Olde Curiosity Shoppe Collection from Graphic 45 has the perfect mix of vintage images and bright, bold colours.  The colour combinations are out of this world and work so well together when paired with the neutral black and off-white patterned papers.  Each time I come across another new collection I think - yes, this has GOT to be the best one they've done to date.  And yet, each new collection released by Graphic 45 just gets better and better? 

I've also made a simple card with this stunning collection, combined with one of the ornate metal door knobs and some of Graphic 45's awesome packaging.  The fantastic DT Lead (and part of the actual G45 family) Charee, celebrated her birthday this week so I sent her a little card to say Happy Birthday!

I hope you all have a wonderful week. We are into our second week of Spring Break and daddy has taken some time off - which is fantastic! Firstly because he gets to spend some awesome quality time with the kiddos. Secondly because mommy booked a totally last minute vacation to Maui with her own mom and leaves in a few hours!! WHOOT HOOT!!! Cannot wait!! I will be anxious to update my blog when I return with tons of beautiful photos and a more relaxed me!! Aloha!

Delite in Life

I had taken my kids to the nature park for the day where we were to feed the ducks and bunnies. It is a favourite past time of ours and as simple as this activity is, it brings each of us so much joy. I love to see the look on all of their faces when a duck eats 'their' bread that they've thrown. They squeal with delight at each of the ducks fighting over every morsel of bread. Such a sight!

I chose the sweet and soft tones in Graphic 45's New Little Darlings Collection to showcase my photos.  I adore the beautiful imagery of the little children and thought it complimented the feeling in the photo wonderfully.

Lots and lots of fussy cutting options in this line! I brought my embellishments to life by adding several 3D Foam Dots.

Thank you so much for your visit today! I'll be back again tomorrow with some more Graphic 45!!

Just Darling!

Here is a layout I created with the Little Darlings Collection from Graphic 45. It is a photo of my daughter last fall - wearing a jacket that my mom had kept all these years (it use to be mine when I was the same age).

Just love the soft, pastel tones in these papers. I decided to keep the look a little more monochromatic so I only added some vanilla hues, paired with the pink/peach tones in the beautiful papers.

I also used one of the pages from an envelope album, painted it with acrylic paint to match the colours in the papers and transformed into a little pocket within the layout.

Graphic 45 Supplies:
Patterned Paper: Baby Borders, Peek A Boo, Little Treasures, Rock A Bye, Heaven Sent, Precious Posy: Little Darlings
Metal Buttons
Kraft Envelope Album
Flowers & Leaves: ZVA Creative
Chipboard Alphas: Bo Bunny
Edge Scraper: Making Memories
Misc: Doilies, Paint

Have a Happy, Scrappy Day!

Live, Laugh, Love

Today the Bo Bunny Designers were challenged to create a "Free for All" Project - anything they wanted, using any paper collection they wanted. This was so fantastic to do. I just love to create layouts with lots and lots of lush layers and distressing. I also adore worn and shabby looking papers and Bo Bunny's ET Cetera Collection has to be one of my all time favourites.

Here is the project I created for this challenge. Two of my kiddos last summer in the field near our house. Just love the way the sun is shining on them in this photo. This layout was also featured in the recent Spring Issue of Canadian Scrapbooker Magazine!

Here are a few close ups of all the wonderful embellishments I have included from this collection. 

Thank you so much for your visit today! Be back tomorrow with some new Graphic 45 Little Darlings!

I Love Candy - March Candy!

I have another Blog Giveaway for everyone!  If you would like to win either of the prize packs shown below, please leave a comment on THIS blog post, become a follower of my blog (if you aren't already) and I will randomly draw TWO winners on March 27th!!

Sounds easy enough right?  Best of luck to you all!

On The Go Cardset

The Bo Bunny Designers were challenged to create a card (or cards) using one of the fantastic Bo Bunny Card kits. My son's 6th birthday is fast approaching so I thought that I might as well make some adorable invitations for him at the same time (we moms are such multitaskers eh?).

I used Bo Bunny's On The Go Card kit to create all eight cards as well as a few other embellishments from the On The Go Collection. Just love how bright and playful this line is - so perfect for little boys.

Here are a few close ups of some of the cards...

Thanks so much for your visit - Hope you have a Happy Scrappy Day!

Just Cards

Happy Weekend everyone!! Just a quick post to share with you all today featuring a few cards I made with Graphic 45's Olde Curiosity Shoppe Collection as well as their timeless Fashionista Collection.

Have an awesome Saturday!