Love, Elsie Blog Focus:Day 5 (Friday Wrap-Up)

Good morning! I can hardly believe that this week of stash busting and focusing on an older product has already come to a close! I got several pages finished this week, although not quite as many as I had originally planned...I am still pretty proud of the dent I am making in my stash! Today, I am sharing an example of something that I do with many of my older papers-Layering it in!

 

I had this lovely sheet of embossed pink cardstock from Love, Elsie (the Roxie collection, I believe). It was so fun and girly, I was reminded of this kit that I put together with my stash a few months ago, "Sassy Fashionista":

 

and a handful of pictures from the twins' first haircut! I had a lot of pictures (enough for a double page spread), and only one sheet of the embossed pink cardstock, so I knew that cutting it up and layering would be the best way to "stretch" the cardstock across two pages.

I ended up with this DPS:

A look at each page, individually;
Left side:

 Right side:

And...that's a wrap on this series for me! If you would like more inspiration for using up your Love, Elsie papers and embellishments, please check out:

• Glitter Girl Adventure#15: Old And New To The Rescue
• or, you can check out my Love, Elsie board on Pinterest-if I stumble across any new Love, Elsie inspiration, I will be sure to pin it!

You have a couple more days to follow my blog and leave comments on my posts for this week for a chance to win the kit filled with Love, Elsie goodies. Tomorrow, I will be at elementary school basketball tournament games all day-all 3 of my younger kids are in the semi-finals. If they win their first games, they will play in the finals (also tomorrow)...Cross your fingers for them!

A Scrappy Sunday, Part #1

I had some free time and the house to myself today, so I had some time for scrappy fun! I worked on using up bits and pieces from previous counterfeit kits , and making pages for some challenges. Up first, a page that I made for sketch #227 over at Creative Scrappers.

The Sketch:

My Layout, Smile:

See It on 2 Peas 

 

Papers used: B-sides from Simple Stories Summer Fresh, Pink Paislee Declaration, Pink Paislee London Market. I used a loopy border punch, Prima decorative tape, a Grungeboard flourish that I painted and heat embossed , hot pink Prima flowers, one Crate Paper journaling spot, woodgrain letter stickers from Momenta, and a layered flower from my September kit.
I'll be back with another layout in a few minutes!

I am loving sketches this month!

The sketch I used today was for the March 1st Challenge over at Stuck Sketches:

I made this layout:

A closer look at my embellishment clusters:

Supplies I used:

From my March Counterfeit Kit:My Mind's Eye "Dolled Up" (the woodgrain/doily paper), Studio Calico (the teal pattern paper), brown Jillibean Soup letter stickers

From my February Counterfeit kit: white Pink Paislee letter stickers, journaling card, October Afternoon banner flag

From my January Counterfeit Kit:white paper doily, embellished snowflakes doily

From my stash: aqua Prima Gillian flowers

Inspired By Pagemaps

I guess it's no secret that I LOVE sketches!! They are such a time saver! And Becky Fleck's PageMaps have been a favorite of mine for a long time now.This layout was made using my March Counterfeit kit, "Country Sunshine", a pinwheel from my mid-march kit, "Catching Fireflies" and sketch that I found on her blog last month.
The sketch:

 My Layout:

The photo I used is my beautiful (almost) 13 year old daughter-gotta love that cheeseball grin!!  Supplies used:
sage green Bazzill Swiss Dots cs, Blush Blossom Stampin Up cs-distressed the edges w/ my TH distress tool, a strip of white rose embossed cs, a leftover piece of Echo Park grid patterned paper from February, MME Follow Your heart hexagons that I hand cut to make a banner, Sew Easy twine, Pebbles rose brad, Pink Paislee and Jillibean soup letter stickers, a journaling tag from the Scrapbook Circle printable in February's "Fifties Style Fun" kit, and a handmade pinwheel that I recieved from a swap.
Thanks for stopping by today-hope you are enjoying a beautiful first day of spring like me! Now, I have to get my butt off of the computer and get some more spring cleaning done!

2 for Friday

Today, I am sharing a layout that I made and shared on Sketches 4 All, but I haven't shared here yet.
For my Pinterest Inspired Challenge Group, I am challenging everyone to use this sketch:

 http://pinterest.com/pin/8585055509541234/

My Layout:

Since this sketch was pinned from the October Afternoon blog, I was inspired to use some of the fantastic OA goodies I had in my Counterfeit kit, including the 8x8 paper pad, stick on chipboard, and buttons.

A closer look at my embellies (I also added some Echo Park and Pink Paislee letter stickers, EP flower sticker, a crochet flower, and some Denim baker's twine):

  And sharing a "Boy" birthday card I threw together from some past and present Counterfeit kit scraps:

The background is DCWV, the grid paper is October Afternoon, with green twine (from the Twinery, I think), and Echo Park banner stickers with Making Memories letter stickers.

Sparkle and Shine

I love using sparkly scrapbook supplies, it suits my girly side very much!! So, when The Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog gave us this challenge,
Challenge #2: Glitter Challenge: Find some fun ways to add some sparkle to your project. Or just blow some glitter around your room and call it a day.
I had no problem!
I used this sketch from Creative Craft World:

And here is what I came up with:

For the sparkly bits-the flower is edged with Stickles, it has a gem center, and the letter stickers for the title "Beauty" are nice and sparkly in real life. You can see the kits these goodies came from here:
http://www.scrappinmargie.blogspot.com/2012/01/its-time-to-counterfeit-again.html.
Love these pictures of my mom and little sis!

Winter Wonderland

I made a layout for the current Elle's Studio Sketch:

My Layout:

A close-up of the adorable little Maya Road Velvet Posie, twine, and chipboard bit:

All the supplies I used were from my January kits:
Lily Bee paper, black/gray paisley print, stamped canvas piece from our Master Forger's swap, Fancy Pants Rub-ons, Pink Paislee Mistables trim, Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type, twine, chipboard, Maya Road Velvet Posie, Pebbles Aqua Glitter Candy Dots, and an Elle's Studio jounaling card that I included in my Digi Add-on from this set:

Sketch Challenge at Sketches 4 All

Good morning! I hope you all had a great weekend! I did! I had some time to myself to scrap this past weekend, and it was such a treat! I have to say, this month's Counterfeit Kit really seems to suit my style, because I am really enjoying scrapping with it, and the pages just seem to flow so easily! The page I am sharing with you today is one that I did for a sketch challenge over at Sketches 4 All .

The sketch:

(Isn't it gorgeous?)

My Layout:

 A Close-up of my embellishment cluster:

Everything I used for this layout came from my January Counterfeit Kits. The background, photo mat and paper strip under the Mistables trim is Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses paper, along with a piece of diecut paper from Target's $1 spot, and I added a piece of light green swirl print paper tilted under the photo mat. The snowflakes were cut from a transparency, using my Cricut E and SCAL (still love what my baby does for me ;-) ), and then I dabbed it with a pearl paint dabber to make it stand out. The title is made up of Cosmo Cricket Tiny Type Stickers and Basic Grey letter stickers, which outlined with a thin black Sharpie pen to make them stand out. For my embellishment cluster, I covered a large white chipboard snowflake with glue, then silver mica flake, used a ZVA crystal swirl, then layered the glittered snowflake with light blue chipboard snowflakes, an embellished button, and a little eskimo girl from the Basic Grey Eskimo Kisses Chip Sticker pack. I added a pink "ticket style" journaling spot, some {crooked} hand-journaling, and I was finished! I have to say, that since I had that moment of self-discovery when I was sharing my favorite layouts from last year, it feels a bit easier to scrap! I don't feel like I am "wandering without a map"-I know my style now, and what I like in a finished layout, so it helps me to make decisions much more easily as I am putting my pages together. I have been inspired to find my style ever since I read about how Melissa found her style-and it was refreshing to find mine!

Now that you've seen my take on the sketch, won't you come and play along for a chance to win a 6x6 Echo Park Happy Days paper pad&Thickers? And while you're there, check out our guest design team call for February?

"Paddleboat Fun"

I saw this awesome color challenge over at The Color Room, and since I had these colors in my October kit, I decided to play along (albeit a little late).

The challenge:

My take on the challenge:

Again, with a crooked photo...gaggghhh!!! Oh well, you can get the idea-I just have to get used to shooting my pages w/o tons of sunlight (it has been very fallish, gray, and rainy here lately). Any way, on to my layout:

I finally scrapped a few photos from my honeymoon! Supplies I used: Pink Paislee Vintage Moon Harvest Moon paper, scraps of Crate Paper Emma's Shoppe Dresses paper for the photo mats, Echo Park Life is Good Element and Alpha stickers, several Girls Paperie vintage buttons, ZVA bling flourish that I colored to match my layout with a Copic marker, black glitter chipboard Thickers.

Oh, and if you don't read the Dear Lizzy blog...she had the AWESOMEST recipe for pumpkin chocolate chip cookies on her blog this morning- 16 oz can pumpkin, 1 box spice mix, and chocolate chips. It sounded so yummy, and I had some of the stuff, so I tweaked it to what I had-1 cup of pumpkin pie mix, 1 butter recipe yellow cake mix, 1 egg, 1 tsp vanilla, and just added in some spices-ginger, cinnamon, cloves, nutmeg, and a cup of chocolate chips, dropped them on a greased cookie sheet and baked at 350 for about 15 minutes. They were SOOOO yummy with a glass of ice cold milk-and I think they still would have been awesome with out the chocolate chips. Try them out and let me know what you think!

Happy World Cardmaking Day!

How are you celebrating World Cardmaking Day? I have thoroughly enjoyed it!! I spent the morning blog hopping and being inspired! Then I stumbled across this challenge on the Pink Paislee blog, so I decided to pull out some of my Pink Paislee stash and play along!

Here are some of my entries for the challenges:
Challenge #5 was a color challenge, based on this photo from Pinterest:

And here is my card for this challenge:

For this card, I used paper from Pink Paislee's Vintage Moon line, " Night Owl", and a journaling tag from the "Father Christmas" punch outs, a little bit of olive colored chalk ink on the edges, and a few leftover rub-on stitched leaves, paper leaves, flowers, and brads. I used my scallop punch on a scrap of Bazzill Swiss Dots cardstock(which I also edged with my olive chalk ink) , and a "Give Thanks" sticker.

Challenge #6:
Stamping Challenge: Layer stamps (I may have cheated on this one a little, because I chose stamps that were meant to be used together/layered).

Here is my card:

For this card, I used paper from Pink Paislee's Vintage Moon line, "Moon Glade", and a stamped frame and sentiment-I stamped the florally frame first with silver paint from a paint dauber, then after that dried, I stamped "Happy Birthday" with Tim Holtz Tumbled Glass Distress ink, fussy cut and inked the edges with the Tumbled Glass ink, tied some hand dyed gray shabby seam binding, attached the stamped sentiment with pop dots, and added some homemade vintage stick pins, then inked the edges of the whole card with the Tumbled Glass Distress Ink.

For my last card (today, anyway), I followed Challenge # 7: Use more than one type of medium.

Here is my card:

For this card, I started with paper from Pink Paislee's Butterfly Gardens line, "Dew Drops". I took some AWESOME Mistable scalloped trim in 2 different widths, and on the one I stamped with a script stamp and some homemade violet colored shimmer mist, and on the wider trim, I did some random messy paint stamping with a polka dot stamp and a silver paint dauber. On top of the muslin Mistables scallops, I tied some lilac colored hand dyed shabby seam binding, and added a flower that I made by layering flowers from Prima and Petaloo which I inked lightly with Tim Holtz Dusty Concord Distress Ink, and leaves from Precocious Paper, and inked all of the edges with Dusty Concord and attached it to a white cardstock card base.

What a fun day I had creating-I hope you got to play a little, too!!

Time for some Scrappy Fun!

I finally got to play with some more of those awesome goodies from August's kit, and I participated in some of the fun challenges I have seen out and aound on the web! Here is the layout that I made, using this week's sketch from My Creative Sketches (a fantastic new sketch blog!). I was also inspired by The Paper Variety's Favorite Things Challenge, "Use Your Favorite Photo" (I love, love, love this photo of my son, it captures his personality so perfectly!).
The Sketch:

My layout, "Special Son":

 A Close Up of One of my Embellishent Clusters:

Suplies I used for this page:
Pink Paislee Butterfly Gardens "Dew Drops", a white paper Doily (Wiltons), punch out borders, journaling card, letters (brown), and word "Special" from the Colorbok Flea Market punch out pad, a Prima flower, a Spare Parts Antique Flower brad, a brown button and Bazzill brown corduroy button Flower from my September kit, and the remainder of a brown ZVA crystal flourish.

The journaling reads:
"Evan- I just love this photo that Nicole took of you the day before Mother's Day. You eyes are windows to your sweet spirit. Love you!   May 2011"

Thank you for visiting!

Twin Sisters

When I was a little girl, I dreamed of being a twin, or having twins when I grew up. I read and reread The Sweet Valley Twins and Sweet Valley High series, and wanted so much to be like Elizabeth and Jessica, two blue-eyed blonde girls with opposite personalities. So, it is a little amusing to me that I "grew up" to have blue-eyed blonde twins myself. It's not all fun and games, but I love my little girls more than life itself! So, this page is to honor that special relationship that they have, but aren't quite aware of how lucky they are yet to have it.

Here is the sketch I used, from Sassy Lil' Sketches:

 

I also took inspiration from another of My Scrapbook Nook's challenges:

Shakespeare once wrote, “What a deformed thief this fashion is”. Here is your challenge: Steal inspiration from Elizabethian fashion, frocks made for men or for women. Think corsets, ruffled collars, doublets, leather belts, braided fabric, and more.

Inspiration photo:

And here is my layout:

I was inspired by the pattern on the top middle photo's collar-this background paper was reminiscent of it, and also added the brown bling, and the ruffled flowers remind me of the ruffles on the collars.

Close up of the embellishments:

 The supplies I used (all from my August CKCB kits):

SEI Chocolat "Nougat" paper (reverse side), Pink Paislee Butterfly Gardens "Botanical Gardens", 2 pink Prima fabric flowers, 2 Brenda Walton for K&CO layered butterfly stickers, bits I trimmed from a brown/amber ZVA Flourish for the butterfly trails, brown letter stickers from the Echo Park Walk In The Park collection, pink Making Memories Chipboard letter stickers, pink rick rack border and "Laughter" punch out die cuts from the Colorbok Flea Market pad.

Thanks for visiting with me this morning, be sure to drop back in on the 27th (Saturday) for my Counterfeit Kit Design Team Blog Hop post!

CKCB Challenge

A few days ago, the Counterfeit Kit Challenge Blog gave us this challenge:

Challenge # 3: Turn it on it's ear: Pick any of the sketches from Sketch Support and rotate it before you use it for a card or layout. You will get a fresh new look this way, but still have the ease of the sketch giving you the blueprints of what to do. So awesome!

I took this sketch from Sketch Support:

And turned it sideways to come up with this page:

I also used a challenge from My Scrapbook Nook's Virtual Crop this past weekend, "#2-This bud of love, by summer's ripening breath-pick 7 different flowers for your layout", and here is a close up of the flowers:

The journaling reads, "It is always so hard to get the four of you together and smiling for a photo.Out of lots of shots, this one was the best Nicole was able to get. Crazy kids!"

Products I used:

The background paper was Pink Paislee Vintage Moon, and the back side of one of the Echo Park Walk In The Park papers, sheer aqua ribbon, the brown border was from the Colorbok Flea Market Punch Out Pad, the title was one of the K&Co rub-ons from the booklet I included in my August kits, The flowers are Primas, Making Memories, and The Paper Studio. All supplies used are from my August Counterfeit Kits (which you can see HERE).

My Beautiful Daughter

The Sketch I Used (from Stuck On U Sketches):

My Layout:

Close Up of my flowers and embellishments:



This layout also qualifies for the Stuck On U Sketches Challenge to Use Die-cuts : the frame behind the photo, the journaling card, the word, "beautiful" ,  and the borders (all premade die cuts from the Colorbok Flea Market Punch-out pad).

I also used: Pink Paislee Butterfly Gardens, "Butterfly Wings", a paper lace doily, a brown crystal ZVA flourish, a K&Co. "Rose" sticker, Basic Grey painted brads, pink Primas and tiny pink roses that I made with a punch and scraps for my August Kit, American Crafts Thickers chipboard letters, and a partial sheet of the Pink Paislee Botanical Gardens (the pale pink), which I distressed on the edges with my scissors.

The journaling says: " Almost 12 in this photo, you are growing up so fast, and becoming a beautiful young lady. I have noticed quite a change this year in the way you act, and an increased self-consciousness. Stay confident, you are beautiful!" I just wrote a note from my heart as a little reminder for my 12 year old, who is growing and changing so much before my eyes. Let your kids know how much you love them, they need to hear it!