Sunday, July 27, 2014

Scavenger Hunt Sunday 7-27-14

I took quite a few photos this week, including some family portraits and one-year portraits for a friend.  Here's how some of them fit with the prompts this week.

Eyes
The little girls whose one-year portraits I shot had these beautiful blue eyes.  

Cup
Last Saturday we celebrated my sister-in-law's bridal shower.  Here are my daughters and their cups of lemonade.

From Behind
Two of my kids had Zoo Camp this week, so we spent some time at the zoo a couple of the days.  One of the days, we went to the Bird Show.  I worked on trying to catch the birds in flight.  Here I captured the crane headed off stage.

Sunshine
The day that I took the portraits it was very sunshiny.  We were able to find shade for most of the shots, but there is quite a bit of sunshine here.

Upside Down
We also went to the butterfly garden at the zoo, one of my favorite places to take pictures. The butterfly on the right looks to be hanging a bit upside down.


Tuesday, July 22, 2014

CAS(E) This Sketch- Shower Cards

I am in the middle of some major photo editing, but I wanted to share a couple of cards I made last week for the two showers I attended this weekend.

The first card is a baby shower card using this week's sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch.  

I cut the moon with the New Arrival Cricut Cartridge.  For the background, I made a stencil for the clouds by cutting the cupcake top from Doodlecharms out of a piece of cardstock. I used a couple of colors of ink on an ink blending tool and blended it through the stencil. After I was finished with that, I dry embossed my cardstock. I used a little platinum Stickles to as some sparkle.

My second card uses last week's sketch from CAS(E) this Sketch.

I inked my embossing folder before embossing my card base to add some color to this card.  The bracket shape and sentiment were cut using the Sentiments Cricut cartridge.  I filled in the fleur du lis with some liquid pearls and finished it of with a gem to match my flower embellishments.


Friday, July 18, 2014

Food Face- My Scraps and More #87

A new sketch is up at My Scraps and More today.  It is this fun, multi-photo sketch with lots of strips in the background.  Those strips are a great opportunity to use up some of those border strips that come with paper collections.

I used Fancy Pants "Collecting Moments" papers for my layout.  Most of my embellishments were from Close to My Heart.

Close to My Heart offers some great white chipboard pieces with resisted areas on them.  They are great for customizing to the colors of your layout.  I inked the frame here with Mowed Lawn and Forest Moss Distress Inks.  I used that frame around a metal frame that I had placed a phrase sticker on.

I decided that, since this is a page about being messy, I needed some splatters on here!  I pulled out my Hero Arts splatter set and stamped some splatters with ink as well as acrylic paint.

Yes, I realize my last two layouts have been of my kids' messy eating habits, I guess that's what is inspiring me right now!

Materials:
Cardstock- Close to My Heart
Patterned Paper- Fance Pants
Buttons- Fancy Pants and Close to My Heart
Gromlets- We R Memory Keepers
Stamps- Hero Arts, Autumn Leaves
Stickers- Bo Bunny, Fancy Pants, Close to My Heart
Ink- Tsukeniko, Studio Calico, Ranger
Paint- Liquitex
Chipboard- Close to My Heart, Fancy Pants
Metal Tag, Ribbon- Close to My Heart


Sunday, July 13, 2014

Scavenger Hunt Sunday 7-13-14

Hi all!  It's been a busy day, celebrating my oldest son's birthday!  I managed to pull together a set of photos for this week's scavenger hunt prompts:

Sunglasses
Don't these two look like double trouble? I had to go back to last month for a photo of sunglasses (guess I need to work on getting my kids to wear theirs more...).  This is my niece and my youngest playing together at my niece's birthday party.

Summer
Summer is short around these parts, but when it is nice out, we enjoy it.  This day we went to the park, had a picnic and played in the water.

 Outside
This little boy loves to be outside and one of his favorite places to play is in the dirt.

Green
My son received a remote control truck for his birthday today.  Here are all the kids (and my husband) trying it out.  I noticed how nice and green the grass was in the background.


Healing
No, there were no candle mishaps. Take a look above my son's left eyebrow.  He fell in church this morning and hit his head on a pew.  That bruise will be healing for the next week or so...


Saturday, July 12, 2014

Hooray- Mojo Monday 353

Happy Saturday!  I hope you have all had a good start to your weekend!  I have a card to share today that I made for my son who turned 4 on Wednesday.  I was inspired by this week's Mojo Monday sketch:

I cute my little superhero used the "Playtime" cartridge.  My son likes to put on his Spiderman costume several times a week, so I thought this was appropriate.  I inked the edges of all of my pieces to tie them together.  The sentiment was part of a larger sentiment stamp that I inked very carefully.

Monday, July 7, 2014

July Calendar Page

Happy Monday!  I finally got a chance to make my calendar page for the month!  I found this fun sketch at Stick It Down.  Aren't the banners perfect for the 4th of July?!

I was also inspired by the 7/4 Stars and Stripes challenge at My Scraps and More.  The challenge was to use stars and stripes on your layout as well as red, white and blue. This was pretty easy for this July page! 


The banners were cut from a variety of papers.  For the background by the title, I started by misting over a circle mask with red ink.  Then I took my star mask and some modeling paste to make some stars.  Before the paste dried, I sprinkled some white glitter over them.  I then pressed the glitter into the paste to help adhere it.  To embellish the page I used some Heidi Swapp chipboard stars, cut some stars with a punch and my Cricut and added a few blue gems.

Materials:
Cardstock- Bazzill
Patterned Paper- Pink Paislee, Doodlebug, Hot off the Press, Echo Park
Chipboard- Heidi Swapp, Fiskars
Ribbon- Offray
Masks- Studio Calico, Crafter's Workshop
Ink- Ranger
Font- Ghostwriter
Modeling Paste- Golden
Glitter- American Crafts
Gems- Michael's
Punch- Marvy
Pen- Sakura
Cartridges- Makin' the Grade, Doodlecharms

Sunday, July 6, 2014

Scavenger Hunt Sunday 7-6-14

It's been a few weeks, but I am back with some scavenger hunt photos!  I took a ton of photos the last couple of days, so I really wanted to get a few up here to share. I also took the opportunity to play with some actions in Photoshop Elements.

Red
We spent the last two days at my in-laws celebrating the 4th of July.  My mother-in-law has quite the collection of dress up clothes and accessories.  Here my younger daughter has on a hat, belt and purse.  She did quite well accenting her red dress and tricycle. :)

White
My sons turn 4 (years) and 18 months this week, so I also took some portraits of them while we were there because there are so many great back drops on their property.  Here is my youngest in his white shirt.

Blue
I tried both days to get some good shots of my youngest.  Here you can see he was feeling a bit "blue" about the whole process. ;)

Play
My in-laws also have a pool and we spent some time playing in it both days.  Here my husband and older three kids were jumping in on the count of three.
Sparkle
No 4th of July celebration would be complete without some fireworks.  Here is the final fountain of our fireworks "show."
 


Friday, July 4, 2014

Messy Messy- My Scraps and More Sketch #86

Today a new sketch was revealed at the My Scraps and More Sketch blog.  This week's sketch has space for one-two photos:

While I don't do many pages with so few photos, this sketch worked well for these two shots of my second oldest.  I again used the May Scrapbook Circle kit for this layout. The only things I used that weren't from the kit were the black cardstock I used for the background, the red cardstock I used to cut the title and the pen I used for the journaling.  Speaking of journaling, since I used the journaling space for another photo, I journaled around the larger pink patterned paper. As you can see , I also adjusted the positioning of the photos a bit so that my daughter wasn't staring off the page.

Materials:
Cardstock- American Crafts, Bazzill
Patterned Paper- Bella Blvd., Heidi Swapp, American Crafts
Die Cuts and Transparencies- Heidi Swapp
Stickers- American Crafts
Pen- Zig
Die Cutter- Provo Craft
Cartridge- All Mixed Up



Thursday, July 3, 2014

This Week's Cards

I'm back to share my cards for this week's birthdays and anniversary.  (Family members with said birthdays and anniversary: if you haven't received your card yet and want to be surprised when you receive your card, wait to read this post!)

The first card I am going to share is a birthday card for my brother-in-law.  I used this week's sketch from Sketch Saturday:
This card came together quite quickly, just some paper trimming and a little stamping and heat embossing.

Next up is a birthday card for my sister-in-law.  This card was inspired by the CAS(E) this Sketch sketch from last week:

 I wanted to have a little fun with my Cricut on this one, so I cut the girl playing the piano.  The speech bubble is a Pink Paislee stamp and the words were from a Stampin' Up set.  Both stamps were strategically inked to eliminate part of the image.  The speech bubble has journaling lines in it and the words are actually the string on a balloon. This is a great way to get more mileage out of those stamps!  The background was inspired by this video by Jennifer McGuire. Seriously, she is a paper crafting genius!  I am always so inspired by the things she does! Anyway, I used my star mask and pressed Versamark over it.  Then I used sparkly embossing powder. Finally, I felt like it needed a border so I used my black pen and a ruler to draw the lines.

Finally, I have an anniversary card for my brother and sister-in-law.  I started with the love die cut and worked from there.  I attached the pink zigzag and then ran my background through my dry embosser.  The scalloped circle was cut with my Cricut.  I used some foam tape to give it a little lift.  Some Stickles and Liquid Pearls added the final details.


Tuesday, July 1, 2014

Card Catch Up

Well, it's been a while, but I am back to share the cards I created last week for 3 different events. None of these were inspired by a sketch or a challenge.  I just pulled out products and let them inspire me.

My first card is a shower card.  The theme of the colors and decorations is peacock feathers, so I pulled out this older paper from Bo Bunny and went from there. The sentiment was cut with the "All Mixed Up" Cricut cartridge, and then I added some glitter for some sparkle.

Next up is a birthday card for my father-in-law.  I usually go a little more muted with my colors for masculine cards, but I wanted to use up this older My Mind's Eye paper.  The pennants were stamped and heat embossed.  I colored the balloons with my water pen by picking up color from my Mowed Lawn Distress ink pad.

Finally, I have an anniversary card.  The circle piece was what was made when I pressed my mask on some cardstock after doing the misting for this layout.  I laid the mask back on top of this piece and, using my blending tool, added the other colors. Coordinating paper and sticker finished off the card.