A decorative tray... for Spring!

As some of you may remember, I had purchased a CTMH decorative photo tray in the fall and altered it for Christmas (you can see it here). Well, I decided that it was too nice to have out only once a year, so I took it apart and started over... for Spring!

(I know, Spring is still pretty far off for me.... but a girl can dream, right?)

So, I started off with some photos that I'd taken almost two years ago of my kids and husband. I printed them 3x4 in black and white and added them to the tray. Then, I pulled out my Fancy Pants The Good Life 6x6 paper pad and started working on embellishing each remaining rectangle.

I used some of the grey polka dot for the background and diecut some red woodgrain patterned paper with a Papertrey Ink Fillable Frames #9 die. I added a Fancy Pants banner sticker to the tag before topping it off with a PTI button (summer sunrise) and twine. I'd printed on some PTI vellum and added some stitching.

On the aqua background (I LOVE this patterned paper!), I added another PTI FF#9 diecut tag. I also diecut a PTI Heart border diecut, trimmed it and covered it with glitter, for this week's Make it Monday at Papertrey Ink: Glitter trim. Another PTI button and twine.

I love the bicycle on this patterned paper and knew I had to include it on my tray. I added a little bit of stitching to the banner and added three PTI buttons to finish it off.

I dicut a PTI Tag Sale #7 diecut from some of the Fancy Pants patterned paper and made a pocket. The phrase from the Fancy Pants sticker sheet was so perfect for these photos!

Another Fancy Pants sticker added over some PTI dies (heart prints, double ended border), along with some more stitching and another PTI button.

And lastly, I'd printed the sentiment on vellum and diecut it, along with some more Fancy Pants patterned paper with my PTI border die. The little white bicycle is Prima, which I picked up at my LSS. Isn't it fabulous? It's been sitting on my craft table for a few weeks now and just makes me so happy each time I look at it.

Thanks for looking!

PTI February Blog Hop

Once again, I'm participating in the Papertrey Ink Blog Hop. This month, our challenge was Monograms.

I have three projects to share for the hop:  a card and a layout made my me as well as a card that my daughter, Sage, made for the challenge.

First up is my card. I used my new Cutting Garden stamp set to stamp on the background (PTI rustic white cardstock.) I did quite a bit of masking here and was pleased with the results. I diecut some My Mind's Eye patterned paper with my smallest PTI Mat Stack 6 die, on which I added the monogram, diecut using PTI Block Alphabet uppercase dies. Two PTI buttons in Simply Chartreuse and some button twine finish it off.

Now, several years ago, monograms were quite popular in the scrapbooking world.... so I decided to make a layout using them.

I used some Crate paper patterned paper, as well as the sketch from Love is in the Details that I posted yesterday.

For my journaling, I diecut two strips of patterned paper using the PTI Tag Sale #5 die.

And for my monogram title, I diecut a Crate Paper tag using my PTI Tag Sale #7 die. The Crate tag already had the "A" printed on it, so all I needed to add was the ampersand (diecut from Crate Paper patterned paper using my new PTI Headline Alphabet dies) and the "J" which was an old October Afternoon letter sticker. It wasn't quite the right shade of green, though, so I inked it up with my Tim Holtz blending tools and my PTI New Leaf ink.

The Ocean Tides button and rustic cream button twine are PTI as well.

And, lastly, here's the card that Sage made:

She also used the Cutting Garden stamps, as well as Headline Alphabet, too. The heart is from Heart Prints. Can you guess who LDP is? ;)

Thanks for looking!

2 sketches, 2 layouts

I wanted to share two layouts that I made yesterday, using two different sketches that I found online.

The first sketch is from the My Mind's Eye blog, for their February Sketch Challenge.

I chose some photos that I took almost two years ago, while we were on a walk in the Pembina Valley. I used some My Mind's Eye Indie Chic patterned paper and brads.

I diecut a PTI mat stack 4 die for the top left hand corner, on which I layered a Notched Flower diecut that I stamped with a Funky Florals stamp and heat embossed them with some Zing embossing powder. I repeated these diecut flowers two more times around my photo and topped them with some buttons and twine.

For my title, I used my PTI Counting my Blessings stamp set and coordinating die, which I diecut from some more MME patterned paper. I stamped the sentiment with Scarlet Jewel ink. Under the photo, I stamped a couple of sentiments from PTI's fabulous frames set.

And this next sketch was posted at the Love is in the Details for their recent online crop.

And here's the layout I made for it, using some more My Mind's Eye patterned paper (gold hexagon, grey polka dot) and decorative brads. The cream background patterned paper is Crate Paper.

For my title, I diecut my Headline Alphabet dies out of rustic white cardstock and then stamped them with Headline Alphabet stamps & A Muse Studio Slate ink. I layered them on a Tag Sale #5 diecut. The chipboard arrows are Pink Paislee mistable ones, which I chose to keep white. I backed the largest one with some grey cardstock.

Thanks for looking!

A few projects

Sage and I got crafty yesterday and wanted to share our projects with you today...

First up, Sage & I made a cover for her Bible, using some pink polar fleece. We diecut some PTI felt (autumn rose, scarlet jewel, hibiscus burst) using PTI dies (mat stack 4, headline alphabet, heart prints). We also diecut a LL:Squares with autumn rose felt to make a pinwheel for this week's Make It Monday at Papertrey Ink: Handmade Pinwheels.

In addition to the Bible cover, I made a layout and a card for a colour challenge at Love is in the Details:

Isn't it gorgeous? I loved it so much, that I after making a layout for it, I pulled out my new PTI stamp set (Cutting Garden) and played around with this colour combo.

First, here's my layout. I found some strips of patterned paper scraps in my scrap file and sewed them to my background (The grey polka dot and orange herringbone papers are My Mind's Eye, the pink floral and striped papers are Crate Paper and the blue is Echo Park.) Then, I added my photo, title (a mix of PTI Headline dies, Wonderful Words Additions stamps and a cut file that I cut using my Silhouette Portrait). Lastly, I inked up a bunch of Pink Paislee mistable hearts and adhered them to my layout.

And here's the card I made using Cutting Garden:

Thanks for looking!

♥ Love Red ♥

I wanted to share a layout today that I made for Crate Paper's latest Creative Weekly Challenge: Love Red.

I chose some Crate Paper patterned papers to work with, along with a Crate Paper Fourteen diecut tag and sticker. I cut the two other tags on the left hand side with my PTI dies (fllable frames #9, tag sale #3). I added a Crate Paper fourteen chipboard accents and some PTI buttons. I was inspired by this quote by Audrey Hepburn, so I created my title in Sihouette Studio and cut it out of PTI pure poppy cardstock on my Silhouette Portrait.

For my journaling, I cut a piece of patterned paper from behind my photo/title and printed my journaling onto it. I adhered it to my layout, matching up the lines on the patterned paper.

Thanks for looking!

A summer's worth of photos

Last month, a forum member posted a challenge on my LSS's site. The challenge was to finish up all unfinished projects within six months. I laughed confidently when I read the challenge at first-- all I have left to finish up is my December Daily, I thought. Then, I remembered my photo a day project from last summer.

I had challenged myself to create a mini-Project Life type project, by taking a photo everyday last summer. Then, I was going to create nine 2-page layouts.... one for each week of our summer.

However, to date, I'd only created 2.

But, this all changed yesterday and today, when I'd woken up Monday morning and decided that I couldn't do any other crafting until these seven layouts were done. So I moved some supplies up onto the dining room table and worked on four layouts yesterday (we had the day off because of Louis Riel Day) and three more today (there was no school because it was declared a snow day-- woohoo!-- the first one of the year.)

So, I decided to keep things simple and stick to my original sketch (seen here and here). I used two sheets of 12x12 American Crafts cardstock for each layout, scraps of patterned paper from my scraps file, PTI stamps (fabulous frames) & dies (fabulous frames, modern alphabet & numbers). I also decided to incorporate this week's Make It Monday at Papertrey Ink: Handmade Pinwheels, by including a handmade pinwheel onto each layout.

The scraps I used for July 15 - 21 were all My Mind's Eye.

Here's a close-up of the pinwheel:

For July 22-28, I streamlined my design even more, using some Heidi Swapp (blue) and MME (woodgrain) patterned paper.

The pinwheel was made using Heidi Swapp patterned paper:

For July 29 to August 4, I used Crate Paper (orange) and MME (blue chevron.)

For the pinwheels, I used another scrap of Crate Paper patterned paper:

For August 5 to 11, I used some Echo Park (green) and MME (butterflies, woodgrain) patterned paper.

For the pinwheel, I used Crate Paper patterned paper:

For August 12 -18, I used My Mind's Eye patterned paper.

... and Crate Paper patterned paper for the pinwheel:

For the last two layouts, somehow I'd messed up with printing my journaling (in the seven weeks before hand, I'd printed Sunday to Tuesday on one piece of cardstock and Wednesday to Saturday on the other). However, when I was putting these together, assembly line style, I'd realized that I'd messed up. I decided to just go with it, though, rather than reprint my journaling, so the dates are on the right hand side.

For August 19 to 25, I used some MME (yellow), Heidi Swapp (blue) & Fancy Pants (green -- this was the backside of a Christmas line from several years ago-- nothing was off limits for this project!)

The pinwheel was made using Echo Park patterned paper:

And for my last layout of the summer, I used My Mind's Eye (grey stripe, butterfly) and Crate Paper (light pink, blue herringbone) patterned paper. Since August ended on a Friday, I didn't have a photo for the Saturday spot, so I added another pinwheel and wrote a little paragraph on how it's always hard to see our summer come to an end.

These two last pinwheels were made out of Crate Paper patterned paper:

So, this means that I have completes my unfinished projects-- what a great feeling!
Do you have any unfinished projects sitting around? If so, what are they? Could you finish them in six months?

Thanks for looking!

♥ him

I'm popping in to post a sketch that I made for this month's Pages With Papertrey Sketch Challenge.

I designed a sketch for this month's challenge:

And here's the layout I made with it. I followed the sketch very closely and added a journlaing tag cluster using my newest Papertrey Ink stamp set: Framed Out #12.

I also used American Crafts cardstock (12x12), as well as some lighter weight cardstock for that I used to cut out my title and my chevron background (both Studio Calico cut files, but the title I changed from "♥ this"  to "♥ him"), Crate Paper patterned paper and journaling tags and PTI buttons.

If you make a layout using this sketch, please post a link to it either here on my blog in the comments or here on the PTI forum.

Thanks for looking!

Happy ♥'s Day

I wanted to share a few things today that I did to show my family how special they are to me...

First off, I made treat bags for the kids. I used PTI glassine bags and filled them with Hershey's kisses. Then, I diecut some Echo Park patterned paper with my largest Mat Stack 6 die and added a diecut heart prints die, stamped with a Heart Prints stamp. I cut my banners using the double-ended banner die and stamped with a sentiment from Heart Prints.

Then, this morning, after seeing today's anniversary challenge at Papertrey Ink, which was to create an accessory of some sort, I suggested to Sage that we make her a few clips to dress up her Valentine's outfit. Since she doesn't want to wear them in her hair anymore, I suggested that we clip them to the collar of her shirt.

I used my Papertrey Ink Notched Flower and Heart Prints dies, PTI felt (vintage cream, raspberry fizz and pure poppy) and some buttons (pure poppy, raspberry fizz) & twine. I hot glued some barrettes to the back, near the top and we clipped them onto her shirt. Here are a couple of close ups:

And one of my pretty Valentine:

And, as if that wasn't enough, I baked and decorated a cake and some heart cookies for my valentines...

I used my PTI Hello Sunshine dies to diecut some Echo Park patterned paper to make my banner. I used the tiniest heart die from Heart Prints and diecut the heart from every second triangle.

I hope you're having a wonderful Valentine's day.... I'm expecting my kids home shortly for lunch.... I'm going to make grilled cheese sandwiches and cut the centres out with a heart cookie cutter. I also told Jonah last night that since Cameron is taking me out for supper (yay!), I'm going to make heart shaped pancakes for them before we go (it's a surprise from Austin and Sage though.... but I'm sure they'll love it!)

Thanks for looking!