Getting back into the groove

I'm sorry I haven't been around much, the last couple weeks have been C-R-A-Z-Y! Between buying the house, appointments for Chloe, Chloe being sick, and then me getting sick, I haven't been motivated to clean my crafts room, let alone make anything!

Anyway, I had suggested another challenge on H! (a "colour your stamps" challenge) and realized I should get off my butt and do it too!

So here's my card, loosely based on my first sketch (JJSC001):


Stamps: Summer by the Sea, Itty Bitty Backgrounds
Paper: Almost Amethyst, Blush Blossom, Barely Banana, Whisper White
Ink: Almost Amethyst, Blush Blossom, So Saffron, Chocolate Chip
Accessories: Watercolor Crayons, Blender Pen, Certainly Celery ribbon, Barely Banana brads, sponge, scissors (for distressing the edge of the white cardstock)

And here's a card that's made for my JJSC001 sketch:

Stamps: In the Spotlight, Forever Love by Inque Boutique, Circles & Dots by Inkadinkadoo
Paper: Real Red, Textured Basic Black, Whisper White
Ink: Real Red, Basic Black
Accessories: brads, 3/4 circle punch, ribbon from Michael's

Here's the reason I've been neglecting you!

We bought a new house!!! The backyard is amazing (this is just half of it, but there's a cherry, apple, and plum tree!):
Most importantly - as far as this blog goes ;) - my favourite room. It will be my crafts room!!!It's done in pink and brown stripes, with dark laminate flooring. I'm so excited!!!

ps. Does that colour scheme look familiar? It should, I've done several cards with it in the last few months!

Colouring stamped images

My crafts room is also our spare bedroom, and as we've had a guest for the last few days, I haven't been able to do any crafting!

I snuck in this evening and decided to colour a few of the images I received from Jill. I'll use these on a card or scrapbook layout at some point, I just wanted to colour!


Each of the above was coloured with SU products and a SU Blender Pen. It's like a marker, but uses water instead of ink. It's great for spreading and blending colours.

I used Pure Color Pencils on the sweet birds nest, and couldn't resist adding some Crystal Effects to the eggs. I coloured the plant (no clue what it is, does anyone know? my best guess is thistle or garlic or something :p) with the Metallic Art Pencil Crayons. I used Watercolor Crayons in Soft Subtles for the bird (no brown, unfortunately). For the flowers, I used Classic Ink pads: with the ink pad closed, squish the top to the bottom. Then use the Blender Pen to pick up some of the ink on the inside of the lid, and colour! For the next plant (berry?) I used the Metallic pencils again. Finally, for the cute little chick, I used more Classic Ink pads (and had to give the flower centre and ladybug some dimension with more Crystal Effects!).

National Scrapbooking Day Challenges

As I mentioned before, NSD was May 3rd, and Scrapfriends had a set of challenges to celebrate! Here are the projects I created for a few of the challenges.

Doodle challenge: Show off your doodling skills in a layout. Color in your doodles as you see fit using colored pencils, markers, pens, crayons, paint, glitter, whatever you like.
For this scrapbook page, I hand doodled the background page. I wanted to keep the photos simple, and I think the black and white work well. I also wanted to limit the embellishment, to let the doodles stand on their own, so there's just a bit of glitter and gloss added.

Paper: White cardstock
Accessories: SU Stampin' Write journaling marker, Marvy Le Plume II markers, SU Crystal Glaze, Stickles, Sakura glitter pen, letter stickers

Create a Card challenge: We all have a ton of scraps and beautiful but underused stamps waiting to be loved in our stash. Why not spread the scraplove and create a card (or a few) with your scraps?

Except for the card bases and some of the white stamped paper, all the paper used was from my scrap stash!

Happy Birthday Card
Stamps: SU Alphabet Soup
Paper: SU Chocolate Chip, Whisper White; K&Company pp
Ink: SU Chocolate Chip; Versamark
Accessories: Corner rounder punch, clear embossing powder, heat gun, SU Vanilla ribbon, felt flower, Prima paper flowers, brad


Baby Card
Stamps: SU Cuddles and Tickles
Paper: SU cardstock, unknown scraps
Ink: SU Purely Pomegranate, Whisper White
Accessories: clear embossing powder, heat gun, ribbon





Many Thanks Card
Stamps:SU Lots of Thoughts
Paper: unknown scraps
Ink: SU Pixie Pink, Only Orange
Accessories: ribbon, buttons




Best Fishes Card
Stamps: SU Very Punny
Paper: unknown scraps
Ink: SU Pink Passion
Accessories: ribbon, SU Crystal Effects



Choose your hidden treasure challenge: We have a hidden treasure here at ScrapFriends. Every week, Penny and Karen hold weekly photo and sketch challenges. These challenges are not posted in our ScrapFriends Challenge Forums - these are free challenges, usually without prizes, graciously provided by KarenEmily and PennyB. Choose one photo or sketch challenge and create a new layout based on that challenge.

I won a prize for this challenge!! I used KarenEmily's Oct. 1st sketch for this layout.

Stamps: SU Simply Said, Inkadinkadoo's Circle and Dots
Paper: unknown cardstock and scraps
Ink: SU Pink Passion
Accessories: SU Scallop punch, SU Diamond Dust glitter, chipboard letters, rhinestones and rhinestone butterfly, flower brads

Learn Something New challenge: It's never too late to learn something new here at ScrapFriends. Our review team offers free online classes and how-to's to share their knowledge. Have you visited the Online Class Page or New How To's Forum lately? Choose a How-To or one of the Online Class Assignments and create a project using that technique.

I tried the Serendipity Squares tutorial:
Paper: SU cardstock, K&Co pp
Accessories: K&Co stickers, diecuts; ribbon; Xyron

I also completed a Scavenger Hunt on the Jacquard website, for which I won another prize! There were even more challenges, but I couldn't get to them all.

500 and counting!

Whoo hoo! I've hit 500 visitors!!! I didn't start tracking my hits from the beginning, so it's actually higher, but oh well.

Check out the new photo slideshow to the right. It shows some of my favourite crafts from the last couple years. You can click on it to view each photo in a larger size.

I'll get some of the new stuff up soon, I promise :) We've been super busy (and for good reason, stay tuned for some big news!).

Sketch Challenge

I made this sketch for a challenge on H!, but if you'd like to try it, please post a link to your card when you're done. I'd love to see what you do with it :)

Lots of stuff to post, but not yet

Thanks to National Scrapbooking Day at Scrapfriends, I have several layouts and cards to post. I'm just too darn tired to get around to it tonight!

On a very happy note, I won two prizes during the NSD challenge. Whee!

Sweet Tooth?

Check out the yummy blog candy at Kitty's Krafty Blog! She later added a note that it's a worldwide giveaway, so all us Canadians are free to enter!

Ooh, and hop over to The Card Grotto from some purpley candy goodness!

Thumping and Huffing

Don't worry, it's not what you think ;)

Thumping and huffing is a technique to add additional colour to a stamped image. You ink up an image, and them use a marker to colour over some of the inked stamp (this is before you stamp it). It's better to ink in a light colour, and thump in a dark one. Once you've added your marker colours, you "huff" on the stamp, to moisten it up a bit again (you know how you breathe on your sunglasses to clean them? same idea).

This card was for a challenge on H!, which was inspired by TL05 on SCS.

This version is very subtle, but I think it looks gorgeous in person (the pussy willows are thumped in a soft blue/grey).

To make the scalloped edge, I took the plastic "guard" off of the bottom of my corner rounder punch (must be EK Success brand, which SU also uses) and punched the edge. It's super easy! Then I punched the holes with my Cropodile, using the slider thing to ensure each was punched at the same distance from the edge.

Here's a close-up of the vase, so you can see the different colours.

Stamps: Vases in Vogue, Itty Bitty Backgrounds
Paper: River Rock, Certainly Celery, Soft Sky, Whisper White
Ink: River Rock, Certainly Celery, Soft Sky
Accessories: Corner rounder punch, word window punch, brads, ribbon, dimensionals, sponge; Cropodile, Marvy Le Plume II markers
Techniques: thumping, sponging, scalloped edge

Here's another thumped image. This one didn't turn out so well, because the lines of the stamp are too small. I think this technique would work better with more "solid" image stamps. Isn't it a pretty butterfly stamp though?

Doodle-rama

This is a layout for a challenge on Scrapfriends. National Scrapbooking Day is May 3rd, and Scrapfriends is having a fun contest. This challenge was to use doodling in your layout.

I wanted to keep the photos simple, and I think the black and white work well. I also wanted to limit the embellishment, to let the doodles stand on their own, so there's just a bit of glitter and gloss added.

Paper: White cardstock
Accessories: SU Stampin' Write journaling marker, Marvy Le Plume II markers, SU Crystal Glaze, Stickles, Sakura glitter pen, letter stickers