Monday, January 30, 2012

Wee Fairy

My oldest sister Ardell was not only an amazing sister but also my best friend. Although she was 11 years older them me she let me tag along with her and her best friend Lynda where ever they went.  With 6 kids in the family we often had to share beds and Ardell was my bed mate. I can remember her reading to me every night before I went to sleep and even when she started dating she would make sure to read me a chapter from my favorite book before heading out on her date. We remained very close even after both of us were married and had our own families. We lost her suddenly 13 years ago and I still miss her terribly.
When I started scrapping I decided that I wanted to do a special page about her as a baby. I knew that the page had to have fairies on it because Fairy was the nickname that her Aunt Phyllis and Aunt Joyce gave her as a toddler.  They told me that Ardell would dance, flit and twirl around the room on her tiptoes and because she was so tiny it reminded them of a little fairy. She was obviously very special to both of them. I can remember many a time when Ardell would come into a room that one or both of them was in and you would hear them say “oh my look, it’s our wee fairy”
            Over the years I have picked up different papers and embellishments with fairies on them but they never seemed to be right for the page I wanted to do.  A while back I came across the Graphic 45 Once Upon a Springtime paper line.  I had finally found the paper I wanted to use. Even the title of the paper line seemed to fit as she was born in the late spring of 1944. But I really wanted to make the pages special and couldn’t decide exactly what I wanted to do with the papers.  So they sat in the drawer waiting for me to work with them.  I finally decided that I would try fussy cutting all the little fairies and flowers and popping them up so they looked 3D.  I have never done any fussy cutting before so I didn’t realize just how much work it would take, but like any labor of love it didn’t matter how long it took because I enjoyed every moment of it.  
            Ardell loved butterflies and since her passing everyone in her family thinks of her any time we see a butterfly.  So I had to add a couple of those for her too. 

Here is the layout that I made for her 






Some close-ups so you can see some of the detail





I hope you enjoyed seeing Ardell’s special page as much as I loved doing it.

Any of you that have been following my blog know that I have been doing a LOAD challenge over at Let’s Scrap.  LOAD stands for LayOut A Day.  So the idea was to make a layout each day in January.  Cathy van der Bruinhorst, the organizer of the challenge made it a bit easier on us by letting us count both layouts and cards.  I am thrilled to say that with a card I made today for the upcoming blog hop and the finishing of Ardells layout I have made 30 layouts and 11 cards in January, an all time high for me.  I’m so happy that I finished off this great month of scrapping with this special tribute to my sweet sister Ardell.

Labels: ,

Saturday, January 28, 2012

Fall Layouts

With finishing these two layouts I have now reached 38 layouts/cards for the LOAD challenge going on over at Let's Scrap.  I can't believe I scraped that much in one month, thank goodness my Mojo finally decided to return.
Here is this weeks Let's Scrap sketch

And here is the layout I did for it.



The next layout I did for a challenge over at Let's Scrap.  We had to pick a sketch and then use smaller size photos in place of the size the sketch called for.
This is the sketch I picked to use

I changed the size of all the photo's on the right hand side of the sketch.


All the pictures were taken Thanksgiving weekend when my Grandchildren and their parents came to visit.  With them moving to Nova Scotia I don't get much chance to see them so I was super excited to have them here for a few days.  I have separate albums for Jacob and Ava so that is why there are two layouts with similar photos.

It won't be long now for the start of the Let's Scrap Leap Around The World Blog Hop to start.  With 50 blog hosts it is the largest hop I have ever seen. Sure hope you can join in on the fun. For more information check out Let's Scrap.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Meeting the Great Grands

I have been working really hard on the LOAD challenge over at Let's Scrap but still seem to be a couple of days behind.  I'm hoping to make up a couple of more cards just so I get caught up.
     Here is the my latest layout

     Every year on the 3rd Sunday in June, my In-laws, Nana and Papa come to our house to join the family for a meal to celebrate Father's Day.  As my oldest son's birthday is on the 22nd and Nana's is on the 28th we always  buy a birthday cake to celebrate their birthdays that day too.  Last year the celebration was even more special because 5 day old Ava got to meet her Great Grandparents for the first time.  Although her brother Jacob is in many of the photos I decided to go a little girly with the page because I plan to put it into Ava's album.
     I decided to make a card with the scraps I had left over.  We're able to count cards in the LOAD challenge so that brings my total up to 14. Here is the card I made.

     I hope everyone had a great weekend and that you were able to get lots of scrapping done.

Don't Forget The Blog Hop

Don't forget to mark your calendar for the Let's Scrap Around the World Blog Hop starting Feb. 1st and ending February 29th.  There are 50 blogs participating, all with a Rak up for grabs. To read more about it come see us at Let's Scrap.

Wednesday, January 18, 2012

Giveaway from Glitz Design

I was checking things out on my Facebook today and came across a post about a giveaway from Glitz Designs. I must admit this company was totally new to me and I just had to check it out. Boy have I been missing out on some amazing scrapbooking products. I will definitely be looking for their paper lines from now on. Their new line Pretty in Pink is absolutely stunning. Make sure to check them out.  http://glitzitnow.blogspot.com/2012/01/introducing-pretty-in-pink.html

Monday, January 9, 2012

Masculine Card Made to Look Like a Man's Wallet

A couple of years ago a fellow scrapper, Linda McDonald, showed me a card she had made her husband.  It looked like a man's leather wallet but was actually made out of cardstock.  I have wanted to make a card like that for my son ever since but unfortunately Linda moved out of town and was never able to show me how she did it.  I decided this week that I would try and figure it out for myself.  Mine didn't turn out  as good as the one she did but I'm still pretty pleased with them. It took a lot of trial and error but I finally got it the way I liked it so I thought I would make a tutorial showing how I did it  in case you wanted to give it a try too.
I made the smaller one on the right first but didn't like it as much so I made the tutorial giving the measurments and photos from the larger one I did the second time around.  Here is what the two looked like in the end.
Here is how I did it.

You only need one piece of cardstock to make this card so pick the color that you want to use for it.  Two important things I learned about the cardstock were:
1. Don't use cardstock that has a different colored core.  For one of my cards I used dark brown but it had a white core and when I embossed and sewed on it the white showed.
2. Inking the edges of the cardstock gives the wallet a cool look because it makes it a bit worn looking, but if you are wanting to ink it you will want to pick a color that isn't really dark because the ink won't show up very well.  I picked a really dark brown and although the ink did cover the white core showing through it didn't show up on the dark brown as much as I would have liked.

Cut your cardstock into these sizes
1 - 10" wide x 4" high - Outside of wallet - Called A
1 -   9 14/16 w x 3 3/4 h - Inside of wallet - Called B
1-    4 3/4 w x 3 1/2 h - Photo holder - Called C
1 -   4 3/4 w x 2" h - gift card holder - Called D
1 -   4 3/4 w x 1" h - sentiment holder - Called E
1 -   4" x 3" piece of clear transparency sheet -  Called F.
Note: For my transparency I used a left over piece that came inside a package of stickers. The stickers had been stuck to it in the package and I saved it when I had used up all the stickers.

Here are your pieces

Using a corner rounder I rounded off the corners of all the pieces except the transparency.

Next cut a window out of the photo holder (C)  I used a 4'"x 3" photo so I measured in a 1/2" on each side of the photo holder and drew a rectangle.  I then used a ruler, my craft mat and Fiskars Craft Knife and cut out the rectangle.

Score pieces A and B down the centre

Sew around the outside edge of piece A.  If you wanted to you could sew around the other pieces also but I didn't bother. Note: at the end of this tutorial I will show you two other suggestions you could use if you don't have a sewing machine.

Using a Cuttlebug and embossing folder, emboss piece A This will be the outside of the wallet. Because the piece is so large you will have to put one end in and emboss it and then turn it around and emboss the other end. The embossing folder I used is called Mesh. I picked it because it reminded me of alligator skin so thought it would make it look like regular wallet.

 Ink over the embossed area. You will also want to ink the edges of all the other pieces.

Apply double sided tape to the two shortest edges and the bottom edge of pieces B, C, D and E.  Also apply double sided tape around  all the edges of the window in the photo holder, piece C.

Take the white part of the tape off piece B and attach this piece to the back of the embossed piece (A). You want to line it up across the bottom and make sure that the scored centre's line up.  I found the best way to do this was to stand them up on the table and then start attaching them. After it is attached the upper part will be open and can be used to put paper money in if that is what you are giving as the gift.

Next remove the tape from around the window in piece C and place the clear transparency piece over the window and make sure it is stuck down on all sides.  Then remove the rest of the tape from it and stick it down on the left side of the card.  Make sure it lines up along the bottom and have the bottom left  rounded corners of  piece B and C match up. It won't meet at the score line but that is the way you want it so that the card can be folded closed.  Slip in the photo you want to use.


Next take piece D and attach it to the right side of the card.  Again line it up along the bottom but match up the bottom right rounded corner of part D and B.  Then take piece E and line it up along the bottom the same way.  This will give you two small pockets one to put the sentiment in and if you are giving them a gift card then you can put it in the second pocket.

The last thing I wanted to show you was how you could do the front outside edge if you don't have a sewing machine.  To do faux sewing you need to use a sponge mat (I use my mouse pad), a ruler and a hole punch. Place the paper on the mat, lay the ruler down near the edge and punch little holds at even intervals.  Then take a fine tipped black marker and draw a line from hole to hole all the way around. Mine is a little to light, so you will want to make the lines a little darker and you will be surprised at how much it actually looks like it was done with a machine. 

The second idea I had was that you could punch larger holes along the edge and then lace ribbon or lacing through the holes.  I can remember one of my sons having a wallet that had lacing on it like this.

One last thing I wanted to show you was that you could use the Paisley embossing folder if you didn't have the mesh one.  This is what the outside would look like after the paisley designed was inked.

I have never made a tutorial like this before so I hope that I have made it clear enough for you to understand.  If you need to see the photo's larger all you have to do is click on them. Making the card sounds quite complicated but once you get the hang of it, it is actually easy to do and makes a cute card for a man or boys birthday or even could be used for Fathers Day.

Thursday, January 5, 2012

Hanging Around Waiting For Christmas

     The pictures for this layout are of my 3 month old Grandson Colton.  Amy and Jason invited me over a few days before Christmas to do a mini photo shoot of him. I had the Santa’s Suit already and  went to the Dollarama here in town and was able to get all these cute little hats.  He had a couple of Christmas themed onesies and Pajama’s so we used them too.  Colton was so good with all the switching of the clothes and picture taking.  He just always seems in a good mood and has lots of smiles for everyone. 
      I did this layout for the LOAD challenge going on over at Let's Scrap.  A friend of mine used a PageMaps sketch to do a layout with the clotheslines on it and I just loved how it turned out so had to give it a try.  As the sketch was just for the one side I had to come up with something myself for the left side.  I was so thrilled when I remembered that I had clothespins with the word Christmas spelled out on them, because they worked perfectly for part of the title and I was able to carry the clothesline theme onto the left side so that the two pages looked like they should go together.
     Here is the layout I did.  I  finished it yesterday but had waited until today to photograph it in hopes that the weather would be nicer but no such luck. So I'm sorry that they are so dark but if I wait around for a good day to take the pictures I might be waiting until spring, lol


     Here are a couple of close-ups showing the clothespins with the felt letters and also ones with snowflakes and Christmas trees on them that came with the set.



     The little outfits, hats and toy stickers have been in my stash since I started scrapping. They are made by Paper Studio and I was so glad that I finally found the perfect layout to use them on.  I’ve had the felt letter clothespins for a long time to but some where along the way I lost the packaging for them so don’t know who made them. 
     I hope you are having a great week and Happy Scrapping. 

Tuesday, January 3, 2012

BLOG HOP COMING TO LET'S SCRAP IN FEBRUARY

One of our DT's, Mindi Brown, is organizing a blog hop for February over at Let's Scrap.  We put the word out to all our members asking if anyone wanted to be a blog host. We didn't expect the amazing response we got. There are 50 Let's Scrap members who are going to host the blog hop and each of them will have a RAK up for grabs.   Make sure to mark the date on your calendar because you won't want to miss out on this one.


Monday, January 2, 2012

January LOAD Challenge

As I mentioned in my previous post I am taking part in a LOAD challenge this month that one of our Design Team members, Cathy van de Bruinhorst, posted for the Let's Scrap members..  I started the month off well by finishing a two page layout last night.  The layout has photo's that I took of my son Jason, daughter-in-law Amy and my then 3 week old grandson Colton.  The house across the street has several maple trees in the yard as well as a rail fence and archway so I thought it was the perfect place to take some fall photos.

Here is the Let's Scrap sketch I used to make my layout


and here is my layout


To make it more interesting and give it some depth I popped up some of the leaves and photos.  I also distressed the edge of the photo mats and little circles.


 
I just purchased an ATG gun and used it to stick down the title but then decided I really didn't like the look of the title so wanted to remove it.  Unfortunately the adhesive used in the gun really adheres quickly so I wasn't able to take it off without ripping the paper so ended up having to leave it the way it was.   


The papers I used are all Close To My Heart products.  I borrowed one of the CTMH Art Philosophy Cricut cartridges to cut out the tree branches, leaves and journaling frame. I have been thinking of buying the cartridge and my sales rep and friend was kind enough to let me borrow her's to see what I thought of it.   I was amazed at all the things you could cut out with it, many more then from a normal Cricut cartridge. So I can see myself buying one the next time her order goes in.

Well I guess I better get back to scrapping, I have lots more layout to do for the LOAD challenge.  I wish all of you a wealth of peace, love and goodness in the New Year.   Happy Scrapping.