My Girl...My Lift

Last night my daughter drew a gorgeous tree on a t-shirt for a friend. She is always doing stuff like this but this tree blew me away it was beautiful and trees are hard to draw. So I said "you should go into that" we have been trying to come up with some ideas regarding her college year because she is a senior next year and she wants to start looking at schools. She replied back "yeah but, I am not creative. If you tell me what do draw I can do it..." I just stood there with my mouth open and she said "what?" I explained to her that I had said that exact...and I mean exact same thing so many times in my life.  Anyway that is one of the reasons that I love papercrafts I can have my creative outlet and make beautiful things but I am given the inspiration to do it from other scrappers, magazines, companies, sketches, print ads and even clothing. 

A friend of mine told me about a blog that has message boards that runs challenges and crops. I was/am super excited because the first crop they are running in the month of March is a Lift it crop...hello...talk about my name written all over it!!! I am totally giddy about the whole thing a crop where I have to lift stuff. LOL it was custom made for me I tell you! So today I have my first lift of the crop. It doesn't start until March but this is a pre-crop...the original page was done by Audrey Kit and I kept her layout pretty much the same and just swapped out the photo's and papers. 

I approached this lift a little different than I have in the past and it was kind of a cool approach. I looked at her page and did a sketch of it and then I wrote down next to that the things I saw on her page because I wasn't sure what I wanted to lift. Here is what I wrote down; flags, bakers twine, stitching, buttons, stickers, bling, distressing, layering, calenders, patterns.  

The original had a cute calender page in the background and so I decided to make my own background paper with this banner set. I stamped off and then did a zig-zag pattern. I love how it turned out. Next I did something I have not done in YEARS I tore paper and then distressed the edges. How fun...I guess everything that is old turns new again in everything in life not just fashion.

I also added some flags. I keep seeing these little things all over. I made this one with a hat pin and the inside of a cute ticket stamp with a cute saying. I turned it into a flag instead. I also added some bling to the insides of the flowers and the hat pin. 

Here are the layers. The journaling on this page is just a cute quote about flowers. I rounded all these corners and distressed them as well. 

One more group of embellishments and you can see how the banners look. I like how they are not over powering the page but you can subtly see them in the background.

I didn't end up doing any stitching on my page nor did I get the bakers twine on. Actually I just remembered as I was writing this blog that I was going to add a few buttons with the twine yesterday but got distracted by my daughter and completely forgot. 

I guess I will leave it off - I think it looks ok without it. 

Supplies: all Close to my Heart unless otherwise noted

Cardstock - Cocoa, Colonial White

Pattern Paper - Mayberry

Ink - Desert Sand, Cocoa, Olive 

Stamps - Party Pennants, You & Me

Embelishments - Mayberry My Stickease, Pretty Pins, Sparkles

Other - pop dots, sponge distressign tool

Challenge is right

So I love challenges...and kits...and ...I am sure we will see more patterns emerge.  Oh I am also quickly becoming a huge fan of my Cricut, you know the one I have owned for 3 years. I keep going to these crops and everyone uses them and then this Art Philosophy from CTMH...well lets just say I am IN LOVE. Ok ok back to the reason for my post. It is the Heart 2 Heart Challenge this week. When I saw it I knew right away I wanted to use the Treasure Life stamp set. I was having a hard time making it work though so I took a few days and then tried again. Well that is just what I needed because tonight when I worked on it it came together perfect...err until I got the that cute flower that is where the challenge came from. I seriously love all of these flowers that come on this cartridge. I have a few flower dies but the great thing about the Art Philo is i can size them all different ways. Yee haw! I don't know why I found it so tricky tonight I just did. These flowers come together quick and I added some Juniper to the edges and a rhinestone brad in the middle. Adorable I tell you.

Do you have any tips or tricks to these flowers? I think they just take a little practice. How fun though playing with paper flowers. I am in like flynn.

Supplies:
Cardstock: Colonial White, Black (CTMH)
Pattern Paper: Wings (CTMH)
Ink: Black, Juniper (CTMH)
Embellishments:  Rhinestone Brad (CTMH)
Stamps: Treasure Life (CTMH)
Other: Art Philosophy Cricut  Cartridge (CTMH)

Mojo - how does mine work?

It was Presidents Day yesterday so I stayed home with the kids. I was looking around to see if there were any challenges I wanted to participate in and saw that Mojo Monday's sketch was super cute. As I was trying to decide what I wanted to use I got distracted...who doesn't right? Anyway my papers were just a mess and I have so many almost gone paper packs that just need to be used up or organized in such a way that I use them. I thought about just giving it all to my friends Natalie (she loves it when I do a stash cleanse) but so many of the packs that I have I really love so I decided to pull all the big and little scraps. 

I know what a mess right?

 

I cut the pattern paper down to 6" and kept most of the stuff that was smaller than that. If a piece of card stock could turn into a card I left it intact. If It couldn't then I cut that down into 6" pieces as well. Some of those ended up as 2" x 6" or maybe 4" x 4" just to give you an idea.

Here is how it looks now. I love it!!

From there I pulled my paper that I wanted to work with

Decided what colors to use on my image

and wala the finished product.

Here is the inside

as well as another angle.

So cow are you doing with your scraps? Do you do anything special with them?

Supplies:

Cardstock: White Daisy, Sweat Leaf, Crystal Blue, Cocoa (CTMH)
Pattern Paper: Emporium (CTMH)
Ink: Cocoa (CTMH), Tuxedo Black (Momentem)
Embellishments:  Cocoa ribbon rounds (CTMH)
Stamps: Howdy (CTMH)
Copics: R39, R81, R85,Y21, YG23 YG 25, BG10, BG72, B000, E31, E55, E57

Wonderland

So if you stopped by yesterday you heard that I have been working with the Wonderland paper pack from Close To My Heart. I like to challenge myself with paper packs or scrapbook kits to use them up. I have done this since my Personal Scrapper kits started just looking pretty on the shelf and not getting used up. I mean why was I saving the paper? For that perfect photo of course. Well then I decided rather than adding to my collection I would start USING my collection I mean if I run out I will just get more. This make is a much more justifiable purchase if I am using it instead of collecting it. So use it I did. I ordered that Workshop on the go kit in December and finally used it up and here is what I came up with. 

You have seen this one here before in the bad lighting...ok ok everyone I am convinced that even though I get excited to share right away I need to wait until the light of day...sorry for all my bad lighting shots in the past.

We boxed in our snow blower before a huge blizzard...so funny.

Here is more clean up shots I saw a cute page using this on Pinterest by Helen Onulak and changed out the papers I used. So cute...thanks Helen.

This one you saw yesterday for my entry into H2H - I used a non traditional color with snow photos

 

Here I added some pink sparkle letters...you can never have to much bling!

Adding another weird color for snow pics. I love how the orange pops!

I loved this card and used up the rest of the My Stickease I decided to pick up when I bought the WOTG. The card I copied almost identically used a stamp instead.

 

Here is what I had left.

One-Two-Three - GO

Alright it is not 1-2-3 go but it is 1-2-3 Challenge time. I started playing along with the Heart 2 Heart challenges again. I am having so much fun. this past week was pretty busy and I almost forgot but I remembered just in time!

One Stamp
Two Pattern Papers
Three Embellishments

This page was so outside the norm for me.

I used browns and yellow.

Here are my two patterned papers.

Do you remember that CTMH now has a pattern on the back of their detail strip? I tend to forget sometimes but have managed to not toss any of them on accident yet. They are all so cute! I thought this one went well with my other pattern paper with brown snowflakes. Both of these papers are from the Wonderland Collection

Here is my one stamp and my three embellishments. The stamp is from the Wonderland Workshop on the go...if you ever read my blog you know how much I adore kits. I also used the Foundry Pin clips that came with it and added some Twine and Brads from my stash. The WOTG kit also comes with Gems but this page is more masculine so I left those out. 

Here is the main way I brought it together.

Here is the left page telling the story of how my daughters fiance got her car stuck in a snow bank seconds after digging it out of the driveway. So funny! You can also see the snow flakes on this page from the stamp that I used.

and the right page. Not so much to see over here. I tried to think of some other things I could do to this side of the page but have not come up with anything yet so for now it is done.



Supplies:

Cardstock: White Daisy, Grey Flannel, Honey, Chocolate (CTMH)
Pattern Paper: Wonderland (CTMH)
Ink: Bamboo (CTMH)
Embellishments: Foundry Pin Clips, Brads, Chocolate Twine (CTMH)
Stamps: WOTH Wonderland Set (CTMH)
Other: Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge (CTMH)

Layouts layouts and more layouts.

no crafting today...cleaning and moving rooms but I thought I would pull up some layouts that I did at the last crop I went to. I don't have the details but they are pretty to look at ;)

Christmas morning

My dad eating birthday cookies

fun family photo shoot

 The scrapbook retreat I did these pages at...can we say FUN

 Lovely fun day at the park

 Kite fest...my favoite photos of the year

 read to me grandma...awww tons of fun indeed.

my bithday girl the big 2-0- no more teens...that went fast.

How can she already be in Pre-school?

Actually last night we were working on her 100 day of pre-school this year but last winter when she turned 3 she started the pre-school program at the local Montessori school. She really enjoys it. Sometimes she is a little shy but over all it is a win win. I was again rummaging through my pinned ideas over at Pinterest and came across this adorable page from a garden girl at Two Peas. I changed it up a tiny bit but mostly I just changed out the colors and the embellishments.

I know that these are not standard preschool colors and it isn't very bright but these cute papers from the CTMH Wonderland just matched my little ones outfit so much I had to just run with it.

I have been using my Art Philosophy cartridge like crazy since I got it but tonight I had a blast pairing it with the stamps that came with it. I just cannot get enough of the combo.

These Rhinestones make my heart swoon and my mind go back in time. I used to have a broach that looked just like this that I would pin to the top button of my over sized men's dress shirt. Man I was so cool in high school

This banner was fun. I love love love banners but I have never mixed and matched before. This is something I will be doing again.

Supplies:

Cardstock: White Daisy, Grey Flannel, Crystal Blue, Chocolate  (CTMH)
Pattern Paper: Wonderland (CTMH)
Ink: Crystal Blue, Twilight, Chocolate (CTMH)
Embellishments: Rhineston Brades (CTMH)
Stamps: Typeset Alpha, Art Philosophy Bundle (CTMH)
Other: Art Philosophy Cricut Cartridge (CTMH)

Win a FREE stamp set

My on line friend Jayma over at Playing with Paper is having a great contest over at her blog and you can win a free CTMH stamp set out of the new Spring/Summer idea book. I am already planning my project but wanted to pass along the great deal.

If you have a few moments check out her blog as well because her work is gorgeous!!!

Good luck!

Oh and here is a page I did recently...don't want a post with nothing to ohh and ahh over LOL