Taylor's Cupcake Challenge #18

I loved Taylor's Cupcake Challenge this week and knew I wanted to use this great S.E.I. paper I just received in the mail a few days ago. It didn't turn out quite as well as what I had imagined, but it will do.

I used my One of a Kind SU stamp set and BoHo Blossoms punch with Wild Wasabi, Ruby Red, Groovy Guava, and River Rock ink. I was pleasantly surprised that these inks matched the S.E.I. Winnie's Walls paper perfectly!!! The sentiment is from SU!'s Absolutely Fabulous.

MoJo Monday #39

Julee posted a great sketch for this week's MoJo Monday challenge. I knew right away that I wanted to use my Verve Visual stamp set Anniversary Birds (still one of my favorite stamp sets ever!!!). And I just love this printed paper (but can't remember the manufacturer...sorry!!). What do you think?

A Gift for Sophie

I loved the color combo for Verve Visual's May Product Parade so much for the baby card I made, that I just had to use it again.

I needed a gift for a friend who is expecting a little girl any day now, so I came up with this. I used the AWESOME Jack's chipboard album from Cosmo Cricket, which I purchased from Verve Visual. The great thing about this album is that the chipboard is black, so you don't have any ugly gray or white edges. I used the colors Soft Sky, Regal Rose, So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie & Old Olive throughout the album. I hope you like it!!

For the cover, I added some American Crafts felt letters and an Imaginisce crocheted blossom. All of the photo mats are sized to fit wallet prints. I also inked around the edges of each page with black ink to give it a little bit of a shabby look.

On the 2nd and third pages, I used the Verve Stamp Set Floral Whimsy and Family Phrases (you can't see it very well in the pic, but on the right page, there's a punched tab with "Precious Little One" on it). I first stamped the vase on some So Saffron DP and cut it out. I then stamped one of the flower sets in black stazon onto the Old Olive CS and again on Regal Rose CS. I cut out each of the Regal Rose flowers and popped them up on dimensionals and added some little half pearl centers. Here's a closer look at the flowers. This is my favorite element of the project!!!

The next pages are pretty self explanatory. I used my nestabilities (FINALLY got them!!) for the photo mats, added a couple pieces of saffron-ish ribbon and some Old Olive buttons. The stamped sentiment & little butterfly is from Verve's Floral Whimsy.

Here's a closer look at the sentiment & butterfly...

I kept the next set of pages really simple, adding just a couple of Pumpkin Pie die cut blooms and large silver brads.

A closer look...

And finally, the back of the album has some Regal Rose ribbon and a punched So Saffron tag with the "Welcome Baby" sentiment from Verve's Family Phrases.
I LOVE how this little project turned out and can't wait to give it to my friend. Let me know what you think!!

Another Island Paperie sneak peek

Here are a few more fun projects I made for Island Paperie's online store launch coming up in June. All of the items used will be available for purchase in the new online store. I'll post links once the store is up and running. In the meantime I will be posting regular "sneak peeks" at some of the products they will be offering.

Bucket full of Memories

I've been doing some design work for my local scrapbook store, Island Paperie, recently. They are going to be launching an all-new online store in the coming weeks, so be watching for a post about that (with lots of great blog candy!!!). Their specialty is Hawaiian / Tropical / Beachy themed items and they have some really great stuff!!! I made this cute little sand bucket mini-album this morning and it turned out so cute!! The chipboard album comes ready to decorate - I used DP paper (some digital printed on my printer) and ink to cover the album and added lots of cute embellishments. I hope you like it!!
I used some temporary adhesive to attach my son's picture to the first page because it needed it for display purposes. However, the rest of the album is blank....the pre-decorated album will be given away as part of Island Paperie's online launch party in a few weeks!! Once the online store is open, you will be able to purchase everything used to make this album. I will post links to the individual items once the store launches.



Mahalo for looking!!

A Cupcake & Color Combo Challenge

I combined Taylor's Cupcake Challenge #17 and Splitcoast's Color Combo Challenge #167 to create this fabulous card! Technically the colors for the color combo were Soft Sky, Blue Bayou, and CERTAINLY CELERY, but I was all out of celery so I substituted Wild Wasabi. I like how it turned out!

I used my new Floral Whimsy stamp set from Verve Visual and I LOVE it! I stamped the outline vase on Blue Bayou textured CS and cut it out. The flowers were stamped on Whisper White with black Stazon and colored with my blender pen and Soft Sky & Wild Wasabi ink. The matted main image is popped up on dimensionals. The card base is Blue Bayou textured CS with a large piece of Soft Sky textured CS at the bottom, separated by some Wild Wasabi ribbon. I added 3 large silver brads (Making Memories) and stamped the sentiment with black Stazon.

A couple of MoJo Challenges

For Julee's MoJo Monday Sketch Challenge #38, I also used the color combo for the Verve May Product Parade Challenge...Soft Sky, Regal Rose, So Saffron, Pumpkin Pie & Old Olive. Initially I wasn't crazy about these colors, but I think it turned out well. I wanted to stick with Verve stamps, but I needed a unisex baby card, so I used Nursery Necesseties for the boat image and paper pieced it with the color combo colors. The sentiment is from Verve's Family Phrases set (LOVE it by the way!!). I will be doing a few more cards with this color combo later this evening and tomorrow, so be sure to check back to see them! Here's my card...

I was so busy last week that I didn't get to do MoJo #37, but I really liked the sketch. I got my first ever Papertrey Ink stamp set, Father Knows Best, on Friday and decided to use it for the MoJo sketch I missed last week. I also really like these colors together (Chocolate Chip, Very Vanilla, and Wild Wasabi)!

Summer Gift Set

I made this cute little Summer gift set this week for a friend's birthday. I covered a Maya Road Tea Break tin from Ben Franklin with DSP and added some ribbon to the handle. All of the gifts fit inside the tin. I made one of the cute little Name Badge Albums you can see here (this one had pics of her son). An embellished giant paper clip, covered post-its and several notecards finished up the project. And guess what!?! There was NO STAMPING in the entire project!!

Several of the DSP & die-cut stickers came from the Summer Days Simply Scrappin' Kit with a color combo of Wild Wasabi, Real Red, Pumpkin Pie, & Bashful Blue. I also used DP from hostess prints pack and A Perfect Day rub-ons. One of the rub-ons is from an American Crafts pack.

Here is a closer look at the tin, album, clip & covered post-its:
I will be posting a short tutorial with cutting & scoring instructions for the post-it cover later this weekend.
A few of the cards...

Hope you like it! I will be doing a lot of crafting this long weekend, so be watching for several more posts. Have a fun & safe Memorial Day Weekend!!

Gift Tins

Remember all those birthday invites and favors I said I was making for my BFF on the mainland? Well, I finally finished them! I also made these cute little thank-you-for -helping-with-the-party-gifts for her Mom and Grandmother and thought I'd share. Hope you like them!! I got these Tea Break Tins from Maya Road at my local Ben Franklin store several months ago. I used the Ginger Blossom DSP with coordinating cardstock in Ruby Red, Cameo Coral, River Rock, Chocolate Chip & Groovy Guava to decorate the tin and make the thank-you card and notepad. You can see a tutorial for the notepad cover here. These were lots of fun and I plan to make more in the future....so many possibilities with those cute Maya Road tins!!! Here are a few more detail pics...

The main image on the notepad cover was stamped with Chocolate Chip ink on River Rock CS. I then colored in the individual petals with my white gel pen and used a Ruby Red Stampin' Write marker to add a little color to the base of each petal. I saw this technique on another blog, but can't seem to remember where!??? I'll add a link if I find it.

RAK from Enjoli

I'm WAAAYYYY behind on my posts so you might be hearing from me a lot this weekend! I wanted to share this awesome gift Enjoli sent me. The picture doesn't do it justice! I love the color combo and wouldn't have thought to use Kraft with that Summer Picnic DSP, but I definitely will now! In case you can't tell in the pic, there's a cute little box made out of covered chipboard coasters and tied together with Old Olive twill ribbon; a covered pad of post-its; a little (actually giant) paperclip; and a really sweet card. If you haven't checked out Enjoli's blog yet, be sure to stop by - she's amazing!!! THANK YOU ENJOLI!!!

Name Badge Album

I made my Mom and Grandma these adorable little mini albums for Mother's Day. I printed the wallet-sized pics and loaded them into several of those name badge covers you can buy in packs of 12 at OfficeMax for about $5. They're held together with a couple of jump rings covered with ribbon - so cute!! Here are a few pics of the finished project and each of the pages. Project details
are at the end of this post
.








You can purchase the Bounce Name Badge album (digital) as a kit from the Shabby Shoppe. It was sooooo easy to make!! I used Photoshop Elements 6 and you just add your photos as another layer to the pre-made quick pages and you're done!!

I have several things to post today, so if you're a subscriber please bear with all the updates! Thanks!!!

Kristina Werner Color Inspiration #9

I REALLY enjoyed the photo for Kristina Werner's Color Inspiration Challenge this week...and not just the colors!!

I wanted to show how a photograph or advertisement or anything else for that matter could serve as inspiration not just for color choices, but for basic design elements as well. I really liked the lines of this photo and the way in which the various colors were put together. Here's my take...

I have to get back to work (I'm on my lunch break), but I'll add the details later. Thanks for looking!!

Grand Prize Winner and Stamp Room Pics

Ok, the Stampin' Out Alzheimer's Grand Finale winner is Enjoli!!!! Congratulations, Enjoli! I'll include both of your winnings in one box and ship later this week. For the Grand Finale drawing, each donor's name went into the "bucket" (actually their random number....thanks random.org!!) and I drew out one lucky winner. So Enjoli, in addition to your ribbon you won previously, you'll be receiving a large random sampling of SU! paper (both solid & DP), your choice of either Lots of Thoughts OR So Many Scallops stamp set (you need to let me know which set you want - the other will be saved for my next SOA event in the fall!!), a sampling of paper from Island Paperie, and a large lot of Creative Memories scrapbooking items including a 12x12 coverset, refill pages & page protectors!!!



Be sure to check out Enjoli's new blog!!! She's already posted tons of awesome projects!!

OK, because I've STILL been busy with birthday invites, favors and thank-yous for my friend (who doesn't stamp so has NO idea how lucky she is to have me!!!!)...I don't have anything new to post. So I thought I'd share some pics of my "Scrampin' Room". I've FINALLY figured out some organizational systems that seem to be working!! I share my stamp room with the "guest room", so I really only get half of the room and half of the closet. But since we only have guests for about 6-8 wks out of the year, the rest of the time my stuff takes over the guest bed as well. Anyway, here ya go....

This is my work area. The table was actually our dining table when we lived in our little 750-sq-foot condo in Kihei!!! It's a counter-height table from Pier 1, actually square, but with a leaf on each side that pulls out to make it a little bit larger rectangle. So when we do have guests, I pack up a lot of my stuff, fold in the table leaves and push it into the corner to give the guests a little more breathing room!! The counter height table is nice because (for now anyway) my 17-month-old son can't quite reach it to pull everything down while I'm working like he does if I sit at the dining room table!!!

This is my scrap storage. It sits under the right-hand side of my desk to TRY to motivate me to at least LOOK through my scraps before cutting a new sheet of paper!! It is organized by SU! color family with the bottom drawer reserved for DP. So far, it's working well.

Top of my workstation...The storage unit in the left-hand corner is from OfficeMax and holds my paper trimmers on the bottom shelf, white CS on the middle shelf, a large circle cutter on the top shelf, pre-scored cards in the small shelf next to 2 drawers that hold my Stampin' Write Markers, blender pens, etc. The box on top holds finished cards. There are 3 small drawer storage units on my table. Each is labeled as to what it holds. Some of the labels include Sharps (hobby knife, refill blades for trimmer, scoring blade, etc); Tools (hammer & eyelet setting tools, small mat & paper piercing guide, etc); embellishments (brads & eyelets, metal rims, rhinestones, & other smallish embellishments); Embossing; Wheel Inks; etc. I also keep my hodgepodge hardware & pretties kit on the small storage shelf under the ribbon. I have a small notebook that I jot down measurements I want to remember, sketches as I think of them, etc.

The other end of the table has a basket of less-often-used embellishments, and a little desk organizer holding my Stamp-a-ma-jig, Crop-a-dile, sticky strip, dimensionals & stamp cleaner.

To the left of my desk. There is another 6-drawer rolling cart that holds tools & adhesives in the top 2 drawers, then my 12x12 SU! CS divided in the next 2 drawers (labeled Solids and Textured), then Simply Scrappin' kits and SU chipboard, then finally DSP in the bottom drawer.
On top of the rolling cart is a basket with my SU punches, my heat tool and baby wipes for cleaning my stamps.

The table top holds my Cuttlebug, sticker maker and small sewing machine (my full-size sewing machine is set up at the foot of the bed). There are also two 3-drawer storage units with labeled drawers holding rub-ons, chipboard, alphabets, photos to be scrapped, etc. Under the table is a file box holding all of my 8x11 SU Cardstock sorted by color. Next to that is a rolling cart with 12x12 drawers for my other 12x12 papers from different companies. The drawers are labeled by company (i.e. American Crafts, Island Paperie, Scenic Route, etc). The 3 narrow drawers hold misc. adhesives & tools. My stamping friend, Nani the cat, can usually be found on the table looking out the window at the mynah birds!!

And here's my stamp closet. All of my SU! stamp sets are in the cubbies as well as baskets with some tools (tag maker, wheels & sheel guides, etc).
On top of the cubby I have a few shelves with labelled baskets (photopolymer stamps, misc. ribbon, non-SU ink, In progress, envies, etc). Next to those shelves is a large basket full of alterables (chipboard albums, tins, etc)


That's it! There's still a little organizing to be done as right now the other half of the closet is full of misc scrapbooking supplies & albums, my cricut & cartridges, etc. But for now, this seems to be working for me!!